Discovering data spaces: A classification of design options

Abstract

Technical coordination between organizations and security concerns are among the major barriers to data sharing. Data spaces are an emerging digital infrastructure that helps address these challenges by sovereignly sharing data across institutional boundaries. The data space concept is at the core of many high-profile research initiatives in the European Union and receives great adoption in practice. Despite the great interest, there is, however, a demand for more conceptual clarity and approaches to describe and design them purposefully. We propose a taxonomy of data space design options grounded in a literature review, an analysis of real-world objects, and over nine hours of expert interviews with data space initiatives. The taxonomy advances our understanding of data space designs and gives a framework to practice making informed design decisions. Our work provides a comprehensive solution space for data space designers to (a) (re-)design data spaces more efficiently and (b) acquire a ‘big picture’ of what needs to be considered.