European data spaces are mainly driven by industry, except those more closely linked to research. Significant work must still be done to establish a consolidated framework at both the national and international levels. A paradigmatic example is the European Health Data Space (EHDS), which has outlined a legal framework with strong involvement from Member States and a clear focus on international cooperation. This is the direction forward, ensuring that countries develop interoperable structures capable of contributing to data spaces while defining common standards and services to facilitate cross-border collaboration.
This is precisely the approach that Research Infrastructures have been following in recent years. Their accumulated experience will therefore be crucial. National infrastructures should not aim to replace existing international alliances and infrastructures, but rather to complement them, providing alignment, supporting multidisciplinary science, and enabling the inclusion of less-represented research communities.
This becomes particularly important in federated architectures, where data cannot be extensively analysed or centralised. Consequently, greater effort must be invested in evaluating and quantifying unstructured data quality and clearly defining provenance and preprocessing workflows. These elements are essential for ensuring reproducibility and reusability.
Provenance and quality evaluation are essential. Seamless integration between Research Infrastructures, e-Infrastructures, and scholarly resources will enhance scientific reproducibility and enable complex scenario analysis that can better support policymaking. At the same time, policymakers must balance preserving individual privacy and serving the public good.
Developing AI models within Secure Processing Environments (SPEs) as required under the EHDS should not compromise their practical applicability. According to the EHDS, only anonymised data may be extracted from SPEs, yet AI models can still incorporate sensitive information. Despite this, applying such models could bring enormous societal benefits, which must be considered.