The 4th National Open Data Meeting reaffirms the role of open culture in the knowledge society

On 16 May, Lanzarote became the epicentre of open culture and open data in Spain with the celebration of the IV Encuentro Nacional de Datos Abiertos (ENDA). Under the slogan "Data in the culture of open knowledge", this edition brought together more than a hundred experts, professionals and open data enthusiasts to reflect on how to boost the development and progress of our society through free access to information.

The event, held in the emblematic Jameos del Agua Auditorium, was organised by the Government of the Canary Islands, through the Directorate General for the Digital Transformation of Public Services, the Directorate General for Transparency and Citizen Participation, the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics and the Island Council of Lanzarote under the brand "Canarias Datos Abiertos".

The transformation to data-driven organisations

The day began with the inauguration by Antonio Llorens de la Cruz, Vice Councillor for Administrations and Transparency of the Government of the Canary Islands, and Miguel Ángel Jiménez Cabrera, Councillor of the Area of Presidency, Human Resources, New Technologies, Energy, Housing, Transport, Mobility and Accessibility of the Island Council of Lanzarote.

This was followed by a talk by Óscar Corcho García, Professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, who addressed the " Challenges in the transformation of an organisation to be data-centric, using knowledge graphs. The case of the European Railway Agency ". Corcho presented the case study of the European Railway Agency (ERA).

In his presentation, Corcho insisted that the transformation from a traditional to a data-driven organisation goes far beyond technology implementation. This transformation process requires strengthening the legal framework, harmonising processes, vocabularies and master data, establishing governance of the ontology model and creating a community of users to further enrich the model.

In this process, metadata, data catalogues and reference data are key elements. In addition, knowledge graphs are essential tools for connecting and integrating data from proprietary systems.

Open data for science in the service of public decisions

The first of the roundtables addressed how open data can serve science to improve public decisions. Participants highlighted the need to strengthen the data economy, move towards technological sovereignty and promote effective citizen participation.

Diego Ramiro Fariñas, Director of the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), highlighted:

• The importance of longitudinal data infrastructures, i.e. data that are collected over time for the same units.
• The value of linked data in breaking down information silos.
• The need to preserve statistical heritage.
•  The project Es_Datalab, which allows cross-referencing data such as those of the Tax Agency with those of Health.
•  The potential of synthetic data to reduce bias in AI applications.

Ramiro Fariñas also emphasised that the National Statistics Institute has transformed its entire statistical production towards data mining, and that leading institutes such as the Canary Islands and Andalusia are improving the publication of data to improve public policies. He pointed out two fundamental aspects: the need for greater interlocution between data producers and the training of administration staff to overcome the main barriers to putting science at the service of public decisions.

Izaskun Lacunza Aguirrebengoa, Director of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), stressed the importance of transforming the model of science, making it easier for scientific institutions to protect and share research information. He explained the concept of open science in contrast to some of the current practices, where knowledge generated with public funds ends up being controlled by private oligopolies that subsequently sell this processed information to the very institutions that generated it. Lacunza advocated public-public collaboration through initiatives such as the Office of Science and Technology in Congress.

Another participant in this round table was Tania Gullón Muñoz-Repiso, Coordinator of the Innovation and Geospatial Analysis Area of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, who shared how data is crucial for the management of emergencies such as the DANA. The Ministry's mobility data has hundreds of reusers, drives new businesses and enables predictive modelling. Gullón insisted that it is key that the data provided by citizens include an explanation of how it has been used, considering this feedback fundamental to give value to open science.

Open culture: removing barriers to knowledge

The round table "Open culture: how data brings us closer to knowledge" discussed how to remove barriers to access, study and transformation of knowledge so that it can be returned to society and its potential can be harnessed.

In this thematic block, Florencia Claes, Academic Director of Free Culture at the Office of Free Knowledge and Culture (OfiLibre) of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC), defined open culture as the current that seeks access to knowledge without barriers and the possibility of being able to appropriate that knowledge, study it and share it again with society. He highlighted interesting ideas such as that publishing content on the internet does not automatically mean that it is open, as open content must meet certain standards and conditions that are not always met.

 Claes explained the value of Open Educational Resources (OER) and how the URJC has a specific office to disseminate open culture, open science and open data. He pointed out that there is a deficiency in the training of university teaching staff on licensing and OER, considering this training as a key element to advance in the culture of openness.

In addition, he stressed that mass access to data facilitates its control, error detection and improvement. For this, initiatives such as Wikimedia or OpenStreetMap are very interesting, both projects accept voluntary participation and your contribution is essential to building and maintaining online open environments.

At the same table, Julio Cordal Elviro, Head of the Area of Library Projects and responsible for relations with Europeana at the Ministry of Culture, explained the evolution of Europeana from simple harvester to digital library, with projects based on semantic metadata, highlighting the challenges of standardisation and digital preservation of more than 60 million cultural works. He explained that the emergence of Google Books acted as a catalyst to "get the ball rolling" in this area.

Cordal also presented the Hispanaproject, which compiles information on digitised collections throughout Spain and federates with Europeana, and mentioned that they have begun to generate OER. He underlined how the use of technologies such as OCR (rOptical Character Recognition) and the online availability of funds makes it easier for researchers to save infinite time in their work. "When you make data open and free, you are opening up new opportunities," he concluded.

On the other hand, José Luis Bueren Gómez-Acebo, Technical Directorof the National Library of Spain (BNE), shared the digital transformation process of the institution, its commitment to open licences and the importance of the emotional component that drives citizen participation in cultural projects.

Bueren explained how the BNE continues its work of compiling and digitising all the bibliographic works produced in Spain, keeping connected with Wikidata and other international libraries in a standardised way. Through initiatives such as BNE Data, they offer a more practical and didactic vision of the information they publish.

He stressed the importance of citizens re-appropriating the cultural content, feeling that it is theirs, recalling that the BNE is indebted to the scientific community and to all citizens. Among the innovative projects they are promoting, he mentioned the automatic transcription of manuscripts. As challenges for the future, he pointed to sustainability, the management of intellectual property and the need for cultural institutions to be able to adapt to new trends.

Prioritisation of public data openness

As in each edition, ENDA presented a specific challenge. This year, Casey Abernethy, Technical Manager of the Asociación Multisectorial de la Información (ASEDIE), and José de León Rojas, Head of the Negociado de Modernización del Cabildo Insular de Lanzarote, presented a methodology and tool to help public administrations decide what datasets they should publish and in what order of priority, based on:

• Data sets recommended by the FEMP.
• Priority sets defined in the UNE Standard on Smart Cities and Open Data.
• High-value assemblies according to European standards.
• Sets requested by ASEDIE (Top 10 ASEDIE).
• Sets derived from transparency indices or regulations.

The proposed methodology considers three fundamental indices: organisational maturity, technical difficulty and strategic relevance. The 4th challenge in the context of the Encuentro was specifically aimed at choosing the key datasets to be published in a public administration according to its open data maturity. This methodology has been implemented in an operational tool that can be found on the Meetings website.

The power of free software and open communities

During the afternoon, the panel "Unlocking the potential of open data" highlighted how free software and open communities drive the use and exploitation of open data:

• Emilio López Cano, Professor at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and president of the Hispanic R Community, showed how the R community facilitates the use of open data through specific packages.
• Miguel Sevilla Callejo, Research Assistant at the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology of the CSIC and vice-president of the OpenStreetMap Spain association, presented OpenStreetMap as an invaluable source of open spatial data and highlighted its importance in emergency situations.
• Patricio del Boca, Technical Lead and member of the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) CKAN technical team, explained the advantages of CKAN as an open source platform for implementing open data portals and presented the new Open Data Editor tool.

Open administrations at the service of citizens

The last round table addressed how administrations can bring data and its value closer to citizens:

• Ascensión Hidalgo Bellota, Deputy Director General for Transparency of Madrid City Council, presented "View Madrid with Open Data". Hidalgo stressed that the project has significantly reduced the number of citizen consultations thanks to its clarifying nature, thus demonstrating a double benefit: bringing data closer to the population and optimising the administration's resources.
• Carlos Alonso Peña, Director of the Design, Innovation and Exploitation Division at the Directorate General for Data, highlighted the cultural change that the Administration is undergoing, moving from data protection to responsible openness. He presented the Data Directorate General's initiatives to move beyond open data towards a single data market: the data spaces, where concrete solutions are being developed to demonstrate the business potential in this area. He also pointed to the growing importance of private data in the wake of the General Data Regulation and the obligations it establishes.
• Joseba Asiain Albisu, Director General of the Directorate General of the Presidency, Open Government and Relations with the Parliament of Navarre of the Government of Navarre, explained Navarre's strategy to improve data quality, centralise information and promote continuous evaluation. He commented on how the Government of Navarra seeks to balance quantity and quality in the publication of data, centralising data from the entire region and submitting metadata to external evaluation, with the collaboration of, among others, datos.gob.es.

The value of open data meetings

The IV ENDA has demonstrated, once again, the importance of these spaces for reflection and debate for:

• Sharing good practices and experiences between public administrations.
• Encourage collaboration between institutions, academia and the private sector.
• Promote the culture of open data as a tool for social innovation.
• Promote the development of skills in public administration staff.
• Improving public policies through information sharing.

After four consecutive editions, the National Open Data Meeting has established itself as a must-attend event for all the people and entities involved in the open data ecosystem in Spain. This event contributes significantly to building a more informed, participatory and transparent society.

ENDA will continue in 2026 with its fifth edition, committed to continue promoting the culture of open data as a driver of economic and social development in our country.  The organisation has already announced that the next edition of the event will be held in Navarre in 2026.. Follow us on social media to keep up to date with events on open data and related technologies. You can read us on Twitter (X), LinkedIn and Instagram.