Open Data Maturity Assessment

There is no doubt that Ireland has been a consistent leader in the EU Open Data arena and a trend-setter for 6 years in a row. 2021 was an incredible year full of challenges overcome and good results, the transposing of the Open Data Directive into national law, the more prominent focus on measuring Open Data impact and the continued value creation of the COVID-19 pandemic are just some examples of our Open Data Programme. All this work was reflected by our ranking in 2nd place in the latest EU Open Data Maturity report.

The Open Data Maturity assessment 2021 benchmarks the development of European countries in the field of Open Data. It measures maturity against the four open data dimensions shown below, where you can also find Ireland’s ranking against Europe’s average:

• Open Data Policy: focusing on countries’ open data policies and strategies – Ireland scored 94%, 7 points above the European average.
• Open Data Impact: looking into the activities to monitor and measure open data re-use – Ireland scored an impressive 100%, 23 points over the 77% EU average.
• Open Data Portal: assessing portal functions and features that enable users to access open data via the national portal and support interaction within the open data community – Ireland’s Open Data Portal is one of the strongest in Europe with a 95% score, 12 points over the European average.
• Open Data Quality: focusing on mechanisms that ensure the quality of the data and metadata – Ireland scored 92%, 15 points above the EU average.

This year we are working to maintain our position as leaders in the EU ranking. Our focus is on the Open Data Quality dimension where, among other initiatives, we are organising multiple events and knowledge sharing sessions such as the “It’s time to open” webinar series, the National Open Data Conference, and a series of local events and meetings to assist data providers in the publication of high-quality data and metadata. This will ultimately improve the use and re-use of data to generate positive sustainable impact in society.