The european big data value ecosystem

The adoption of big data technology within industrial sectors facilitates organizations to gain competitive advantage. The impacts of big data go beyond the commercial world, creating significant societal impact, from improving healthcare systems to the energy-efficient operation of cities and transportation infrastructure, to increasing the transparency and efficiency of public administration. In order to exploit the potential of big data to create value for society, citizens and businesses, Europe needs to embrace new technology, applications, use cases and business models within and across various sectors and domains. In the early part of the 2010s, a clear strategy centring around the notion of the European Big Data Value Ecosystem started to take form with the aim of increasing the competitiveness of European industries through a data ecosystem which tackles the fundamental elements of big data value, including the ecosystem, research and innovation, business, policy and regulation, and the emerging elements of data-driven AI and common European data spaces. This chapter describes the big data value ecosystem and its strategic importance. It details the challenges of creating this ecosystem and outlines the vision and strategy of the Big Data Value Public-Private Partnership and the Big Data Value Association, which together formed the core of the ecosystem, to make Europe the world leader in the creation of big data value. Finally, it details the elements of big data value which were addressed to realise this vision.