Preparatory actions for data spaces for manufacturing

Outcomes and deliverables

The selected action will deliver:

• A sustainable data governance scheme and the identification of a proper governance body, including, where relevant, European Digital Innovation Hubs and Testing and Experimentation facilities.
• an inventory of existing data platforms for manufacturing and a blueprint for manufacturing-specific building blocks which could contribute to the long-term convergence of existing and new data-related initiatives in manufacturing by making use of the data space technical infrastructure.
• A detailed roadmap towards pan-EU data spaces for manufacturing and migration paths for the convergence of broadly established industrial systems to manufacturing data spaces and the data space technical infrastructure.

The data space for manufacturing will be subject to article 12(6) for the reasons already provided in section 2.2. The data space will provide information on the entire manufacturing and distribution chain. Such data can reveal sensitive information about critical manufacturing sectors in the EU, such as aerospace or automotive. This data could also expose dependencies and potential vulnerabilities in the production and supply chain which could be used for malicious attacks impacting EU security of the production and supply chains and more broadly public order.

The preparatory action will establish a multi-stakeholder data governance, an inventory of existing data platforms for manufacturing and a blueprint for manufacturing-specific building blocks which could contribute to the long-term convergence of existing and new data-related initiatives in manufacturing by making use of the data space technical infrastructure. The preparatory actions will support the deployment of these data spaces for manufacturing, and propose sustainable business models and incentives schemes to motivate participants to share data.

The action contributes to the definition of the technical infrastructure for data sharing and re-use within the manufacturing sector and across relevant sectors. The action will bring together existing national, regional and local data ecosystems, and relevant stakeholders, to join efforts and identify common principles for sharing industrial data and re-using large pools of data at the EU level.

The funding will enable the establishment of a data governance mechanism, with a detailed roadmap on how embryonic data spaces for manufacturing should progressively accelerate into a pan-European manufacturing data space and reach out to a very large user base, in particular SMEs. The manufacturing data space will grow organically, building on different solutions, initiatives and data ecosystems across the EU. The project will lay down the foundations of the common European data spaces by:

• Developing a multi-stakeholder data governance scheme, bringing together national, regional and local data ecosystem stakeholders, to jointly agree on the data interoperability requirements and interfaces, and data federation models. The scheme will also review options in an existing or new governance body to ensure openness, conformity and evolution of these, in agreement with the private sector.
• Delivering sustainable business models for the data spaces, which incentivise data sharing and reuse of the private sector, such as data brokerage, data valuation, and service bundling and pricing.
• Elaborating an inventory of existing data platforms for manufacturing and a blueprint for manufacturing-specific building blocks which could contribute to the long-term convergence of existing and new data-related initiatives in manufacturing by making use of the data space technical infrastructure. It will ensure that the data spaces for manufacturing are based on existing EU legislation and data policies, as well as on common principles agreed at sector or local levels as well as data sharing and reuse template contractual arrangements. The blueprint will clarify the building blocks and common elements necessary for the management of industrial data in data spaces for manufacturing (connectors, vocabularies…) from the value-added data applications delivered by competing suppliers. It will also propose migration paths for the convergence of broadly established industrial systems to manufacturing data spaces and the data space Technical Infrastructure.
• Bringing an agreed set of priority datasets and data themes, including real-time data into conformity with the new blueprint standards and principles.

The action will have to work in partnership with the Data Spaces Support Centre (see topic 2.2.2.1) in order to ensure alignment with the European Data Spaces Technical Framework and the rest of the ecosystem of data spaces in section 2.2.1 thereof. The joint work will target the definition of:

• the data space reference architecture, building blocks and common toolboxes to be used;
• the common standards, including semantic standards and interoperability protocols, both domain-specific and crosscutting;
• The data governance models, business models and strategies for running data spaces.

Furthermore, the action should work with the European Digital Innovation Hubs and the Manufacturing Testing and Experimentation Facilities for developing a model concerning the long term sustainability of the Manufacturing Dataspaces.