Sustainable Open Data Business Models for NMCAs

2 - 3 February 2022 (Online)

In February 2022, EuroSDR co-organised with EuroGeographics a workshop addressing the impact of Open Data regarding sustainable Business models for NMCAs. The workshop was held online and divided over two half-days: Wednesday 2nd and Thursday 3rd of February 9:30 – 12:30 (CET).

Programme of the workshop: Click here (or read more below).

Presentations: You can download the presentations here.

Background

Open Government Data initiatives are found worldwide and the concept of open data has been gaining momentum in the last 20 years. Open data are often associated with realizing ambitions, such as a more transparent and efficient government, solving societal problems and increased economic value. In 2019, an important milestone was the publication of the Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on open data and the re-use of public sector information. This directive provides (article 14) that publications and re-use of specific high-value datasets such as geospatial or earth observation and environment (annex 1) shall be free of charge from mid-2023 onward.

Switching to an open data policy poses challenges to the business model of National Mapping & Cadastral Agencies (NMCAs), especially if they are required to generate sufficient revenues to cover a substantial part of their operating costs. A shift from supplying licenced data to open data not only means a loss of revenue in the short term but also a loss of control over the reuse of the data and customer contact. NMCAs need to think outside the box in order to adapt their business models to fit this new data paradigm.

This joint Eurogeographics and EuroSDR event, aimed to assess the impacts of open data policies on the business models of NMCAs and which adaptations have been made to cope with revenue losses due to open data supply. The workshop’s objective was also to identify trends as a repetition (in a barometer survey approach) of a research action led in 2017 by EuroSDR and TU Delft. This workshop brought together the NMCAs, researchers and policy makers to present, discuss and share their experiences of open data. Issues and topics that were covered during this workshop were:

- Strategies towards (sustainable) open data
- Which business models can be utilised by NMCAs and how sustainable are these?
- What have the impacts of open data been on the operational costs of the NMCA?
- Which options do NMCAs have to their disposal to refinance their operational costs?
- Is the supply of open data living up to expectations?
- What are the non-financial challenges to implementing open data
- How do you manage the loss of control over the reuse of the data and customer contact

Agenda and presentations can be found here.