On March 19, 2025, the Interoperable Europe Portal Team hosted its Users Group Meeting. The event, open to participants online, aimed at helping users improve their experience on the Portal and assisting content creators in enhancing their work through a deeper knowledge of the Portal’s tools. The event also focused on highlighting the connection between the platform’s key spaces with the Interoperable Europe Act, presenting both recent and upcoming updates to the Portal, and fostering collaboration through user participation.
The agenda of the event was as follows:
- Team introduction & meeting’s objectives
- Portal spaces that support the Act
- Improving user experience
- Private messaging
- Events calendar
- Portal user reference guide
- Guest speakers whose projects support the Act
- Felicitas Bitzenhofer on the Interoperability assessments space
- Miguel Diez Blanco on the EU Open Source Solutions Catalogue
- Stefanos Kotoglou on Public Sector Tech Watch & the migration of the GovTech Connect community
- Ifigeniya Stoilova on the Interoperable Europe Academy
- Coming soon to the Portal
- Solution creation wizard
- Translation enhancements
The meeting opened with the greetings of Bernard Claes, the Business Manager of the Interoperable Europe Portal, who emphasised the importance of continuous collaboration and user engagement in shaping the Portal's future. Initially, the key spaces of the Portal which support the Interoperable Europe Act were presented, followed by showcasing the latest Portal features, that focus on an elevated user experience. Additionally, the participants had the chance to hear from four guest speakers who work on projects that support the implementation of the Act and have dedicated spaces on the Portal. The speakers, working all in the Interoperability and Digital Government unit, shared their insights, and the highlights of their presentations can be found below:
Felicitas Bitzenhofer, Policy officer, presented the Interoperability Assessment Space, a core element of the Act. The assessments are mandatory, since January 2025, and this space will be regularly updated with assessments and their best practices.
Miguel Diez Blanco, Project Manager of Open Source Software activities, presented the EU Open Source Solutions (OSS) Catalogue, a centralised repository of open-source software developed by, and for, public administrations. He highlighted its key sections designed to guide users in sharing, contributing to and promoting OSS. During a live demo, he showcased the available solutions along with all related elements and functionalities.
Stefanos Kotoglou, Business Manager, presented the Public Sector Tech Watch (PSTW), an observatory dedicated to the monitoring and analysis of emerging technologies in public administrations and the GovTech Connect, the initiative to promote innovation and public-private collaboration through Boot camps for GovTech startups, studies on GovTech, etc. He concluded by illustrating the key objectives, as well as the strengths and areas of improvement of these initiatives.
Ifigeniya Biserova Stoilova, Policy Assistant, presented the Interoperable Europe Academy, an initiative offering free learning courses for public administrations and other interested users. During the live demo, she demonstrated how to access the Academy space, explore its learning paths and curriculum, and encouraged users to take online courses and reuse the available content.
To conclude the presentation, two upcoming features to the Portal were announced: the Solution creation wizard and the translation enhancement. You can stay tuned to the news section for updates on these and other new tools that will be introduced to the Portal!
Throughout the event, there were interesting interactions with participants who actively shared their questions and feedback. Below is a recap of the main questions asked during the event, along with the answers provided by the Portal Team
Yes, assessments are not retroactive. Anything completed before January is not subject to the assessment requirement. More details can be found in the guidelines.
Yes, the assessments are open to anyone. There is no need to authenticate yourself to access the assessment tool or browse existing reports.
It is available at the solution's main page.
Yes, discussions are ongoing with several member states and cities. Currently, eight candidate catalogues are ready to be integrated into the EU Open Source Solutions Catalogue.
Not currently, but it is an idea that could be considered in future developments.
No, each country is responsible for its own hosting infrastructure. The EU Open Source Solutions Catalogue aggregates data from national catalogues but does not provide hosting.
Not yet. Currently, the catalogue relies on the accuracy of national repositories, however, quality criteria may be introduced in the future.
No, while open-source software and interoperability often go hand in hand, this catalogue focuses specifically on OSS solutions rather than interoperability standardisation.
The catalogue will be publicly available on 31/03/2025. It will be accessible through the Interoperable Europe portal under the "Solutions" section.
The Interoperable Europe Portal Project Team would like to thank everyone for your participation and engagement!
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If you missed the webinar or have additional questions, feel free to check the FAQs or contact the Portal Team via the support contact form. The presentation slides are available in the attachment below.