Description of each data space

This chapter gives high-level descriptions of the Common Data Spaces defined by the European Commission and selected other initiatives that are important from a Norwegian perspective. See also: Norwegian participation.

1. Health — European Health Data Space (EHDS)

The most mature of all European data spaces, and the only one with a binding legal framework. It is meant to give citizens control over their own health data while also opening up secondary use in research and policy-making.

EHDS is built around the EHDS Regulation, which entered into force in March 2025, with obligations phased in gradually towards 2027 and beyond. It distinguishes between two purposes of use. Primary use is about citizens being able to access and share their own electronic health data across borders when they receive healthcare — this is delivered through the MyHealth@EU infrastructure. Secondary use concerns the reuse of health data for research, innovation, policy and regulatory purposes, and is being built out through HealthData@EU, where national health data platforms are connected via a network of nodes and central services.

What sets EHDS apart from the other data spaces is that it is not a voluntary collaborative infrastructure but a legally binding scheme. A core requirement is binding interoperability requirements for electronic health record systems: vendors must support the European exchange format and meet technical requirements for security, access control and logging.

2. Agriculture — Common European Agricultural Data Space (CEADS)

Intended to enable agricultural and food-chain data to be shared in a secure, sovereign and trust-based way, for the benefit of both the industry and public administration.

CEADS is the deployment project that implements the agricultural data space. It started in April 2025 and runs until March 2028, is coordinated by the Flemish research institute ILVO, and brings together partners from around 15 EU countries. The project builds on the preparatory action AgriDataSpace (2022–2024), which mapped the landscape and recommended a federated, decentralised model with data sharing anchored in farmers’ interests.

The ambition is to increase the economic, environmental and societal value of European agriculture through secure data sharing — from precision farming and AI-driven innovation to climate adaptation along the entire value chain, including public administration. The approach is to build on the many hundreds of existing data-sharing initiatives already in the sector, rather than establishing a single central platform.

3. Industry/manufacturing — Manufacturing Data Space

Intended to give industrial and manufacturing companies infrastructure for sharing data at scale, and to strengthen competitiveness, sustainability and resilience in Industry 4.0.

The manufacturing data space is being implemented through deployment projects under the Digital Europe Programme (the call DIGITAL-2024-CLOUD-DATA-06-MANUFSPACE, managed by HaDEA). Unlike more unified data spaces such as CEADS, this field is more call- and project-driven, without a single unifying portal. A central project is Sm4rtenance, a consortium of 47 partners from 11 EU countries with a budget of around EUR 14 million, focused on predictive maintenance and circular maintenance through federated data sharing.

The purpose is to deliver technical infrastructure, governance documentation, codes of conduct and contract templates that allow manufacturing companies to share industrial data in a trust-based way while preserving data sovereignty. A stated goal is also to support the transition to a greener and more circular economy through new data-driven business models.

4. Finance — European Financial Data Space (EFDS)

Intended to stimulate innovation, market transparency and sustainable finance, and to ease access to financing for European businesses through a more integrated data market.

The financial data space rests on two main components. The first is open finance, which the European Commission proposes to regulate through the FIDA (Financial Data Access) framework. FIDA is meant to establish rights and obligations for sharing customer data in the financial sector, where data holders must share customer data when the customer permits it, and to standardise data and interfaces. FIDA is still at the proposal stage with no final adoption date.

The second component is ESAP (European Single Access Point), established under a separate regulation and operated by the securities authority ESMA. ESAP is to become the EU-wide access point for publicly available financial and sustainability-related information about European companies and investment products. Data collection is expected to start in July 2026, with full public availability from July 2027. ESAP is closely tied to structured data formats (notably XBRL) and is part of the EU’s broader work on a Savings and Investments Union.

5. Mobility — European Mobility Data Space (EMDS)

Intended to facilitate access to, aggregation of and sharing of data from existing and future transport and mobility sources across modes of transport.

EMDS is being implemented through the deployment project deployEMDS (2023–2026), which builds on the preparatory action PrepDSpace4Mobility. The project establishes a framework for connecting and federating mobility ecosystems, and runs nine local pilots — including in Barcelona, Budapest, Flanders, Île-de-France, Lisbon, Milan, Sofia, Stockholm and Tampere — with a total of 16 use cases in mobility planning, public transport, multimodality and travel information.

EMDS sits at the intersection of the EU’s data strategy and the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy. The aim is to make it easier to adopt common building blocks and to contribute to the development of new, data-driven services and applications in the transport sector.

6. Green Deal — Green Deal Data Space (GDDS)

A horizontal data space intended to support the European Green Deal by sharing high-value data on biodiversity, zero pollution, the circular economy and climate adaptation.

GDDS is now being implemented through the deployment project SAGE (Data Space for a Sustainable Green Europe, 2025–2028), which builds on the preparatory action GREAT. SAGE brings together more than 40 partners from Norway and a number of other European countries, among others, and is developing a federated, secure and interoperable infrastructure that allows sensitive or restricted data to be combined with open and public data, supported by semantic interoperability mechanisms.

The Green Deal data space is one of several horizontal (cross-sectoral) data spaces, alongside smart cities and DestinE — it is not tied to a single sector but to a broad set of environmental and climate data. SAGE is also intended to make it easier to find and use data from many sources and from other European data spaces, and is meant to remain in operation after the project ends in early 2028.

7. Energy — Common European Energy Data Space (CEEDS)

Intended to provide broader access to energy data in order to develop innovative services that balance and optimise power grids and improve energy efficiency.

CEEDS has not yet been implemented through a single deployment project with its own central portal, but builds on the results of six ongoing projects funded under Horizon Europe: five innovation actions (DATA CELLAR, EDDIE, Enershare, Omega-X and SYNERGIES) and the coordination and support action Int:net. These develop, validate and demonstrate solutions for a common European energy data space that enables access to and use of energy-related data.

The data space is meant to balance general and sector-specific rules, and is anchored both in the EU’s data strategy and in the action plan for digitalising the energy system. Thematically it ranges from renewable energy and flexibility to local energy communities and consumer-centric services.

8. Public administration — Public Administration Data Spaces

Intended to improve transparency and accountability in public spending and combat corruption, and to make legislation and case law more easily accessible across the EU.

Public administration is not a single project but a domain with several components. The oldest is PPDS (Public Procurement Data Space), which brings together public procurement data from across the EU for transparency and analysis, and which originated from a Digital Europe procurement as early as 2021. A newer branch is ELDS (European Legal Data Space), intended to provide easily accessible, reusable and interoperable data on legislation and case law — for use in decision-making, research and the development of legal tools (legal tech). ELDS builds on existing building blocks such as the e-Justice Portal, EUR-Lex/CELEX and ECLI (European Case Law Identifier) rather than being a new project.

A Commission study from 2023 on extending the high-value datasets pointed out precisely that the datasets with the greatest potential are those related to public administration, justice/legal matters and financial data — which explains why this domain has several parts.

9. Competences/skills — Data Space for Skills

Intended to reduce the skills gap between education and training systems and the needs of the labour market, through sharing data on qualifications, learning opportunities and skills.

The skills data space has gone through a chain of projects. DS4Skills (coordinated by DIGITALEUROPE) laid the foundation, EDGE-Skills contributed infrastructure, and the deployment phase is now being continued through DS4Skills-GO, which develops use cases across several EU countries with a “use cases first” approach.

The purpose is to make it easier to discover learning opportunities, assess and develop skills, match the supply of and demand for skills, and strengthen evidence-based policy-making — within a secure, GDPR-compliant framework anchored in the Data Governance Act. The target groups range from educational institutions and students to employers, training providers and public authorities.

10. Cultural heritage — Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage

Intended to accelerate the digital transformation of Europe’s cultural heritage sector and promote the reuse of digitised cultural heritage across society.

The cultural heritage data space is operated by a consortium led by the Europeana Foundation, and builds on Europeana’s digital service infrastructure. It allows cultural heritage institutions across Europe to share digitised content with high-quality metadata — including in 3D — and promotes reuse across different audiences, creating value for the economy and society. A dedicated strategy for 2025–2030 sets the direction for how the data space is to be governed and create impact.

The work is supported by the Europeana Network Association (a professional community of several thousand experts) and the Europeana Aggregators’ Forum (the network of national and thematic aggregators), and is overseen by the Member States through a dedicated Commission expert group (CEDCHE).

11. Language — Common European Language Data Space (LDS)

Intended to gather language resources and data in support of European language technology and multilingual artificial intelligence.

The language data space is being developed by a consortium of four partners on behalf of the European Commission, under a contract that started in January 2023 with a duration of 36 months (with the possibility of extension). The work is structured around five main areas: project coordination, governance (rules for accessing and sharing LDS data), infrastructure (the technical architecture), promotion, and privacy and copyright compliance.

The purpose is to make language data and language resources available for the development of European language technology — an area that has gained strategic importance with the rise of large language models and the need for multilingual AI that reflects Europe’s linguistic diversity.

12. Media — Trusted European Media Data Space (TEMS)

Intended to build a robust, data-driven ecosystem in the media sector, with trust-based sharing of content and data across the value chain.

The media data space is being implemented through the TEMS consortium, which was launched in 2023 with 43 partners from 14 countries and runs until 2026. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) plays a leading role, including coordinating pilots, specifying and integrating technical building blocks, establishing a governance model and developing a dedicated media ontology (TEMSCore). The consortium includes media organisations from all subsectors as well as technology providers with expertise in data space deployment.

The project is supported by the Digital Europe Programme and is intended as a core element in implementing the EU’s data strategy for the media sector. A stated motive is to facilitate the development and adoption of data-driven technologies such as AI, promote innovation and collaboration in an increasingly complex value chain, and strengthen the ability of European media to compete with dominant global platforms.

13. Research and innovation — European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)

Intended to give European researchers a federated environment for storing, sharing, processing and reusing research data across disciplines and borders.

The research and innovation data space is closely linked to EOSC (European Open Science Cloud), which is being taken forward through, among others, the EOSC EU Node and the EOSC Association. EOSC is built around the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and is meant to make research data and related services available in a common, open ecosystem.

This is one of the most established and broadly anchored areas, with close links to national research infrastructures and e-infrastructures. It supports open science and data-driven innovation across disciplines.

14. Tourism — European Tourism Data Space (ETDS)

Intended to build a culture of data sharing in the European tourism sector and to connect tourism data with other data spaces.

The tourism data space is being implemented through DEPLOYTOUR, which establishes the European tourism data space and builds on an earlier preparatory action led by, among others, the European Travel Commission. The project is built around five pilot projects in different countries — from sustainable tourism management in Alpine regions to using data to revitalise cultural heritage sites in Greece — and emphasises a bottom-up approach that builds a data-sharing culture among stakeholder groups.

A distinctive feature is the close links to other data spaces. The Europeana Foundation, which is central to the cultural heritage data space, is also a partner in DEPLOYTOUR and is working to establish data flows between the two infrastructures. Interplay with the language data space (LDS) for multilingual accessibility in tourism has also been demonstrated.

15. Smart cities/communities — Data Space for Smart Communities (DS4SSCC)

A horizontal, place-based data space for administrations at all levels and their suppliers, so that they can deliver better services to citizens through interoperability.

DS4SSCC is now being implemented through the deployment action DS4SSCC-DEP, which continues the preparatory action DS4SSCC. The latter laid the foundation with a multi-stakeholder governance model, a common blueprint, prioritised datasets and a roadmap. Unlike the classic sectoral data spaces, this one is territorial and place-based rather than tied to a single sector — in line with Green Deal and DestinE as the other horizontal ones.

The data space is meant to give cities and municipalities better monitoring, planning tools and decision support, including for reaching Green Deal targets. It is being implemented through concrete pilots. One of these is GEO4Water (2025–2026), an Oslo Region (Osloregionen) project on data sharing and digital tools for managing water and water pollution, with pilots also in Spain and Ireland.

16. Defence — European Defence AI Data Space (DAIDS)

The newest data space, proposed through the Data Union Strategy in November 2025. Intended to give the EU’s defence authorities a secure, sovereign platform for sharing defence data.

The defence data space differs from the others in several ways. It is managed by the European Defence Agency (EDA) rather than under the usual Digital Europe/HaDEA structure, and is still at an early architecture and study stage. The work of shaping the architecture is carried out by a consortium of Sopra Steria, Cloud Data Engine (CDE) and the French CEA, based on a broad consultation of stakeholders from industry and Member States. EDA is aiming for a fully operational platform by 2030.

Its anchoring is also different: the data space was introduced via the Data Union Strategy as one of several new data spaces across key sectors, but the actual implementation lies with EDA, which coordinates with the Commission to avoid overlap. A naming nuance is worth noting: the sources use both the generic term “defence data space” (the Commission’s policy language) and the more specific DAIDS (EDA’s project name). These are probably the same thing seen from two angles, but are not explicitly equated in the available sources.

17. DestinE (Destination Earth) — adjacent initiative

A separate EU flagship building a digital twin of the Earth. Not formally part of the Commission’s list of data spaces, but closely related and included because it has Norwegian participation.

DestinE was launched in 2022 and is led by three trusted entities selected by the European Commission (DG CNECT): ESA, ECMWF and EUMETSAT. The work is divided so that EUMETSAT is responsible for the DestinE Data Lake, ESA for the DestinE Core Service Platform, and ECMWF for the first two digital twins (on weather extremes and climate adaptation) as well as the Digital Twin Engine itself. The initiative involves around 90 institutions across Europe.

The purpose is to create highly accurate digital models of the Earth system that can monitor, simulate and predict the interaction between natural phenomena and human activity — for use in decision-making, with the possibility of running tailored “what if” simulations. The data space is related to, but not part of, the horizontal data spaces; EUMETSAT’s Data Lake federates several data sources and provides harmonised access.

18. DTO (Digital Twin of the Ocean) — adjacent initiative

The EU’s digital twin of the ocean, under the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters”. Not a formal data space, but included because Norwegian organisations are heavily involved.

DTO is a separate Mission initiative rather than one of the Commission’s Common European Data Spaces. The core infrastructure, called EDITO, is being developed by Mercator Ocean International and the Flanders Marine Institute on behalf of the Commission, and builds on existing resources such as the Copernicus marine services and EMODnet. EDITO is an open infrastructure intended to facilitate the development of digital twin applications for the ocean.

The purpose is to provide a virtual model of the ocean that enables researchers, industry and decision-makers to understand and predict the effects of human activity and climate change. The initiative is connected to the wider data space ecosystem, but is managed outside the sectoral structure.