Study on big data and B2B platforms: the next big opportunity for Europe Press Release

Brussels, 19 November 2020
Published on 19 November 2020

On 26 November 2020, the European Commission and the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) are organising the final conference under the “Big Data and B2B platforms: the next big opportunity for Europe” study. The objective of the study is to analyse how to accelerate the growth of the data-based economy and to support the development of B2B platforms in Europe focusing on two sectors: automotive and healthcare.

Over the past two years, the study team has developed two technical pilots to enhance data sharing, and an accompanying analysis of regulatory barriers, market deficiencies and policy recommendations.

The two pilots, one for each sector, were presented and discussed with experts during four rounds of workshops that took place between April 2019 and October 2020. For the healthcare sector, the pilot on a high quality, diabetes-related data repository demonstrates an architecture for the fair and equal sharing of health data from different sources and regions. For the automotive sector, the pilot provides an approach to cooperative, connected and automated mobility with the introduction of a ‘shared server solution’.

The final conference will present the results of the study and discuss the main lessons learned with policymakers and stakeholders. This will be an opportunity to share the policy recommendations and action plans identified by the study team. The event will be organised online and is free of charge and open to the public; registration is required.

Background

The study started in December 2018 and will be completed by December 2020. It focuses on two sectors: (i) cooperative, connected and automated mobility and (ii) high-impact healthcare.

The following reports will be delivered under the study by the end of the year:

• Two reports, one for each sector being analysed, on the design, organisation, rollout, outcomes and impact of the two pilots;

• Two reports, one for each sector being analysed, on potential market deficiencies and regulatory barriers, including a common industry-led position;

• A report with recommendations for EU and national policymakers and an action plan to create shared EU-wide in-vehicle data platforms;

• A report with recommendations for EU and national policymakers and an action plan to accelerate the creation of unified EU-wide diabetes-related data platform; and

• A report informing policy actions on skills for the automotive sector;

Pilot on fair and equal data sharing for cooperative, connected and automated mobility

The pilot aims to prove the concept of a possible solution that can help improve fair and undistorted competition, particularly on equal access for all market participants (in particular SMEs) to in-vehicle data using a shared data platform. The fourth workshop on this pilot took place on 8 October 2020 in an online format and brought around the table 29 experts. The workshop was an opportunity to gather feedback from participants on the final outcomes of the pilot and it covered, among others, the following topics:

• A demonstration of the pilot’s recent developments regarding the introduction of Kafka platform to the Shared Server architecture to deliver secure and low latency back and forth communication between the vehicles and the OEMs and a presentation of suggestions for anonymising Shared Server's data to foster the secondary use of them.

• A presentation from an invited speaker from ERTICO about the impacts of connected and automated driving on employment.

• A presentation of the legal feasibility aspects of the pilot, by both a technical and legal perspective. Focus was given on the privacy-related considerations.

• A presentation of draft recommendations to the EU and national policy makers to create shared, EU-wide in-vehicle data platforms.

• A presentation showing that the implemented pilot meets the need of service providers for developing innovative services in a fair and undistorted market.

The workshop was the final in a series of four workshops and closed the final phase of the pilot which is the finalisation of the outcomes phase. The study team will now consolidate the insights gathered during the fourth workshop to finalise the setting of the pilot and its features, as well as to enrich and foster practical and action-oriented outcomes.

Pilot on a high-quality, diabetes-related data repository by using the latest technologies and big data breakthroughs

The pilot aims to extract and exploit data from Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) datasets to develop a comprehensive biomarker package that quantifies the relevant processes of the metabolic flexibility system and determines an individual’s metabolic health trajectory and predisposition to certain conditions. The extracted T2D data will be coupled with real world evidence (RWE) data from multiple sources outside the typical clinical research setting. The ultimate objective of the pilot is to test and further develop a federated database infrastructure responding to FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) able to connect data from different research sources. The added value of such an infrastructure will be shown by specific use cases.

The fourth workshop on this pilot took place on 7 October 2020 in an online format and brought around the table 14 experts. The workshop was an opportunity to gather feedback from participants on the final outcomes of the pilot and it covered, among others, the following topics :

• The current final presentation of the pilot and status of the infrastructure.

• A demonstration of the 1st and 2nd use case of the portal on health databases and information on relevant Applications and Initiatives.

• An interactive session on the lessons learned from pilot and use cases.

• A presentation by an invited speaker from the Hyve, on their experience as an SME with implementation of health-data sharing.

• An interactive session on the lessons learned from the SME experience.

• A presentation on legal considerations regarding data protection and privacy.

• A presentation and interactive session on policy recommendations to the EU and national policy makers and an action plan to accelerate the creation of a unified EU-wide diabetes related data platform.

The workshop was the last in a series of four workshops planned in relation to the execution of the pilot and closed the finalisation of the outcomes phase of the pilot on T2D and health data. During the final stage of this study, the portal will be finalised based on the feedback received from participants during the fourth workshop. Also, the use cases will be finalised, the ontologies further developed and the data essential for the use cases, FAIRified.

 © European Union, 2020

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