European Federation of Data Driven Innovation Hubs

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EUHubs4Data (European Federation of Data Driven Innovation Hubs)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-09-01 al 2022-02-28

EUHubs4Data will set up a European federation of Data Driven Innovation Hubs, with the ambition of becoming a reference for data-driven cross-border experimentation and innovation, and support the growth of SMEs and start-ups in the European data economy. Based on the concept “European catalogue, local offer”, it will establish a Europe-wide, sustainable ecosystem drawing upon local expertise and achievements of European initiatives and national/regional data driven DIHs. To materialize the ambition, the project relies on:
• a strong initial ecosystem of 12 DIHs linked to European Data Incubators and SME networks
• a multi-dimensional approach (governance, operations, technical, ethical and legal aspects, interoperability, skills) for the expansion and sustainability of the federation
• a strong offer of services and access to data sources, based on an initial set of solutions for data and service interoperability, and including a coherent and diverse training programme
• the capacity to attract, support and engage SMEs, start-ups and web entrepreneurs
• a community and ongoing collaborations with relevant European Initiatives

The coordination of all activities of the project is quite a challenge. The project has organized a KoM, 5 plenary meetings, 12 monthly meetings and regular WP and tasks meetings, as well as dedicated working groups focused on critical issues. 3 amendments have been signed in order to refine some aspects from the initial proposal. The work has been reflected in 51 submitted deliverables. The Advisory Board was set-up, and a first workshop was organized in April 2021.

One of the first objectives of the project has been the creation of the federated catalogue. The DIHs provided a list of services, datasets and courses to be added as part of such catalogue, whose first version was produced before the first open call of experiments. A second iteration was ready before the opening of the second open call in Dec 2021, that considered feedback provided by both the SMEs and the partners.

A second pillar was the development of the interoperability between the hubs. The project adopted the approach offered by IDSA Reference Architecture Model, and all DIHs have tested different components and started the development of additional software parts to expose services and data through IDSA connectors. As of Feb 2022, the work continues, and partners are deploying connectors in production environments and developing APIs to make them work with the storage systems and services offered by their infrastructures.

An Ethics Monitoring Group has been created, and an External Ethics Advisor has been hired, for the ethics assessment of the services and data offered by the partners, and to analyse the implications of the use of data in the experiments approved in the different open calls.

Regarding the strategy towards the establishing and sustainability of a real federation, a working group was created to accelerate the formalization of the Federation by the DIHs fully committed to this goal. In addition, several meetings were held with different initiatives to establish links with the most relevant ones. Another important process targeting the creation of the federation was the onboarding of 18 new DIHs, through a dedicated open call. Currently the first group of 9 DIHs are integrated in the project and participating in second open call for experiments.

Two open calls for experiments have been launched (in total 170 applications) and the first round of 10 experiments have been carried out and managed by WP7. Besides that, the second round was launched, and a new collection of applications were received and studied starting in Feb 2022.

The dissemination of this work was essential, and several campaigns were designed by WP9 to reach large audiences. The project has currently more than 800 followers on Twitter and LinkedIn. In terms of events, the project organized and participated in, among others: Data Forum 2021, Data Week 2021, EBDVF2020 and EBDVF2021 and Gaia-X Summit 2021.

The main objective of the second term of the project is that EUHubs4Data consolidates as the reference in Europe for cross-border data driven innovation and experimentation. The project will keep working on the definition of the governance and organizational model of the federation, through a double dimension: the project working and producing the elements needed for the definition of the model, that will be reviewed, refined and eventually adopted by the Federation Working Group, created and driven from the project, involving those DIHs more actively committed to the establishment of the federation, but acting externally to the project and also as a link to the BDVA i-Spaces group. This scheme will be useful to engage all those DIHs that will become new BDVA i-Spaces in 2022 and 2023, invite them to be part of the federation, and involve them in some of the (not funded) activities to set-up this federation.

For the model of the future federation, new European regulation such as the DGA, the Data Act and the AI act will be further examined to see also how they affect the activities of the project. Data regulation will not only affect the way the federation will run and operate, but also can be seen as an opportunity to build a trusted and fair data driven ecosystem.
“Data Innovation Strategic Group” will be created, where most relevant initiatives in Europe will be invited to join and discuss around relevant aspects that might affect the establishing and future of the federation, and the relation with their respective ecosystems. The project also plans to progress on the relationship with the BDV PPP projects grouped under the “data platforms”, going deeper on those aspects already identified.

This second term will also see the consolidation of the federated catalogue (datasets, services, courses), with the implementation of the different blocks addressed in the previous term, and new features included after the experience of the first two calls for experiments. The catalogue will also be enriched with the assets coming from the new round of DIHs incorporated in 2022.
The 14 experiments selected in the second open call will be executed and evaluated. Those experiments will be useful to attract and keep engaged the SMEs to the ecosystem, foster the collaboration among DIHs, mobilize data and enrich the catalogue, refine the federated service delivery and define the exploitation model of the federation. The third and last open call for experiments will be launched in Sept 2022 to select 18 new experiments, which will start in Feb 2023, lasting 9 months.

Finally, the communication and dissemination strategy of the project will focus on the consolidation of the brand EUH4D as the reference in Europe for cross-border data driven experimentation. New materials to support the activities of the project will be produced. As the brand is more widely known, the project will participate in more external events (IoT Week and My Data forum planned for 2022). Data Week 2022 will have an ambitious approach with an online opening event, followed by 2 weeks of online workshops and regional events and a final physical event in Naples. Additional participations are already planned for the second half of 2022 (i.e. EBDVF2022). It is also planned to intensify the C&D activity more in 2023 (if budget allows), with a potential final event of the project as part of EBDVF2023.

Map of 30 data driven innovation hubs included in EUHubs4Data (12 partners + 18 new DIHs)

First f2f EUH4D consortium meeting (Leuven, 29th March 2022

List of experiments selected in the first EUH4D open call

Combination of services provided from DIHs (each DIH a different colour) to the 10 experiments

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EUHubs4Data (European Federation of Data Driven Innovation Hubs)

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