Governments’, businesses’ and individuals’ understanding of data has changed dramatically over the last few years. Through education, news, legislative change, and supporting education programmes and dedicated data infrastructure, EU citizens have had many opportunities to develop an awareness of what data means for their lives, and of the potential economic and social impact of data that affects them directly.

The “Support Centre for Data Sharing” (SCDS) is a new initiative funded by the European Commission to further support the development of the Digital Single Market. Our objective is to facilitate data sharing, i.e. transactions in which data held by public sector or private sector are made available to other organisations (public or private) for use and re-use. Success of data sharing depends on practices, technology, cultural elements and legal frameworks that are relevant to sharing any kind of information digitally, between individuals or organisations.