The importance of data management principles for efficient data spaces

The European Commission has launched the European strategy for data, introducing an exciting vision of data spaces for many domains. This data space concept and its expected benefits have been so attractive that we already observe many ongoing initiatives building data spaces with large thematic overlaps as well as data spaces at different geographic scales including addressing different periods of time. Interoperability across data spaces in such a context is of increasing importance, and in order to prepare for the necessary interoperability also between the numerous thematic and domain-specific data spaces, a minimum requirement to begin with is good data management. In this presentation, an overview of key data management principles such as the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) data sharing and data management principles, FAIR, CARE, and TRUST principles will be given. A comparison based on the experience from the GEO dialogue series in 2022 and 2023 and how the principles in various ways support the creation of efficient, usable data spaces will be offered. There will be a focus on interoperability throughout the preparation to the creation and management of data spaces and how this is pivotal to avoid data fragmentation and thereby contribute to efficiently implementing parts of the European data strategy, namely the data spaces concept.