Last Thursday, the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, announced the ‘Data Spaces Boost Plan’, an initiative aimed at enhancing data economy opportunities in Spain, following the guidelines set by the European Union. This plan was presented with an additional investment of 300 million euros, thus raising the total funding to 500 million euros. This significant budget is focused on promoting the creation and exploitation of data spaces in key sectors of the Spanish economy, such as agri-food, sustainable mobility, health, commerce, and tourism.
The main goal of this plan is to accelerate the development of sectoral data spaces, allowing both companies and the Spanish economic fabric in general to benefit from the upcoming European single data market. By focusing on strategic sectors, the plan aims to foster innovation and increase Spain’s competitiveness internationally.
The Plan is structured around 11 measures distributed in six action axes, which include a governance system that will be implemented between 2024 and 2026. These axes include strategies aimed at promoters, companies, and the technological industry, as well as cross-cutting lines focused on enablers, public data, and promotion and dissemination. Funding comes from the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan and the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, specifically from components 12 and 14, focused on sectoral data spaces and the tourism sector.
Some initiatives of the Plan have already begun to be implemented, such as the promotion of data spaces in the tourism sector and the call for Sectoral Data Spaces, which has allocated 80 million euros to finance 90 innovative projects. Examples of these projects include collaboration in the exchange of clinical data between hospitals and the improvement of urban transport through the optimization of mobility data.
For the near future, the opening of two new calls before the end of the year is anticipated, focused on the development of use cases and products and services associated with data spaces, with a total budget exceeding 100 million euros.
The presentation event was attended by prominent figures in the digital and technological field, such as María González Veracruz, Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, as well as representatives from European institutions and other influential figures in key ministries for the development of the Plan.
Referrer: MiMub in Spanish
