With the recent adoption of the Implementing Act on High-value datasets under the Open Data Directive, European public authorities with data in scope are required to make available High-Value datasets (HVDs) together with metadata in a machine-readable form through APIs. This implies that, in the short run, public administration will need to work on further aligning their technical stack.

On the 21st of April from 10-13 CET, the Digital Economy Unit of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, in collaboration with the APIdays conference organisers, reflected on the opportunities and challenges associated with APIs for implementing the Open Data Directive in the public sector and how to best collaborate with the private sector.

The workshop aimed at identifying opportunities lying behind investing in this implementation, such as:

• what returns on investments can be achieved through modernising the technical stack,
• how it could ease the integration of innovators
• how the latter could help exploit the value residing in HVD data assets by business ecosystems and the digital society at large.

Public and private practitioners discussed coordination models, infrastructures, and approaches to comply with the current data-sharing legal framework. Experts and participants exchanged their views about enablers and barriers to coordinating public and private digital interfaces, specifically through APIs.

You can find the full recording here.