The European Data Portal harvests the metadata of Public Sector Information available on portals, both national, regional and local, throughout Europe. Currently there are 74 catalogues which are harvested, with a total amount of over 660,000 datasets available on the European Data Portal. These datasets are divided over 13 data categories. But what are the most popular datasets? An overview of the most popular datasets (in terms of pageviews, covering March 2017) is provided below. In the top-ten most popular datasets, not a single country stands out when looking at where the data originally

Creating a business friendly environment for existing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and potential entrepreneurs is one of the European Union's main objectives. Also on a national level, having a favourable business climate is often seen as an important factor to create employment and to drive economic growth. What can Open Data tell us about business climates in Europe? This dataset provides some insights in the expectations and trust of Spanish companies if it comes to the economic outlook in their country. This dataset is updated once each quarter, as it is based on a quarterly

The impact of Open Data is undeniable. The digital economy revolves around Data, with (Open) Data being the new raw material. European countries are aware of Open Data and the promises it holds, and are positioning themselves to exploit this new raw material. Public administrations are opening up their data, Open Data portals are expanded with new features and more national and local governments are developing a policy framework underpinning the release of Open Data. A number of studies have underlined that this could result in substantial economic benefits, but there are still some challenges

Welcome to version 2.0 of the European Data Portal! The European Data Portal is continuously developing new content and features. Version 2.0 went live on 1 March, with a more user-friendly design, new content and new features. Thank you for all the feedback, suggestions and improvements we have received after the launch of version 1.0 of the portal in February 2016. We are happy to give an overview of the new features of the portal that has just gone live. What major technical changes have been made? The responsiveness of the portal has been improved, allowing users to seamlessly use the

The European Union has adopted legislation to foster the re-use of Open (Government) Data. The expected impact of this legislation combined with the development of data portals, is to drive economic benefits and further transparency. Economic benefits are primarily derived from the re-use of Open Data. Value is there. The question is how big? The economic benefits have been largely outlined by a number of studies. However, few studies offer aggregate figures covering several different macro-economic indicators. Thus, the European Commission, within the context of the launch of the European

Governments have a large number of basic data which can be of economic and social value to society. Along those lines, more and more European countries are developing policies to release this data as Open (Government) Data. In 2003, the European Union (EU) adopted legislation to foster the re-use of Public Data in Member States via the Public Sector Information (PSI) Directive 2003/98/EC, which was revised in 2013 ( Directive 2013/37/EU). The main amendments are the adoption of the "open by default" principle, the breakaway from cost-based charging for PSI towards a marginal cost-oriented fee

With the World Climate Conference taking place in Bonn these day, the question of renewables comes once again to the fore. Renewable energy is a game changer, as it alters the dependency on fossil fuels and brings in more sustainability and innovation. The European Union Renewable Energy Directive sets forth a binding target of 20% final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020. EU countries have already agreed on a new renewable energy target of at least 27% of final energy consumption in the EU as a whole by 2030 as part of the EU's energy and climate goals for 2030. To achieve this

Immigration debates are often politically heated and take place in many different European countries. By using one of the following European Data Portal datasets, you will be better informed during your next conversation on the matter. Let's take a look at for instance Eurostat data published by the British Home Office. The 2010 to 2015 data allow you to find a more sophisticated perspective on border control, asylum applications and related figures. The French Ministry of the Interior provides a similar dataset, but also showing the main countries of origin from those who applied for a

A year ago, the European Data Portal launched its Beta version. In November 2015, this version referenced 240,000 datasets and had metadata available in 3 languages. The launch was accompanied by the publication of a report assessing the economic benefits of Open Data and an overview of the state of play of Open Data in Europe. Because this is what the European Data Portal is all about: creating value through Open Data and supporting European Countries accelerate in publishing high quality datasets. An important milestone for the European Data portal was February 2016, with the release of

Police sirens, cars accelerating. A major source of the noise you hear comes from traffic passing by. But how loud are these sounds exactly? And how is noise pollution different in various parts of the city or region? European Open Data Portal datasets tell you the answers on these questions for several countries. This article highlights four country examples. The city of Dublin (Ireland) has measured the noise pollution during day and nighttime on the roads and published this data in the report Revision of Noise Maps and Action plans. During daytime, the band starts at 55 decibels, whereas