Interoperable smart city transformation: Insights from European data space for smart communities

Area of Science:

• Digital Governance
• Smart City Technologies
• Data Infrastructure

Background:

• Achieving interoperability in smart cities is challenging for local governments due to legacy systems and fragmented ICT.
• The European Data Space for Smart Communities (DS4SSCC) aims to create interoperable, cross-domain data infrastructures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine how interoperability is operationalized within DS4SSCC using the Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs) Plus framework.
• To analyze the interaction of governance, technical standards, and procurement in enabling cross-domain collaboration.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative case study approach.
• Document analysis, stakeholder surveys, and workshop insights from the DS4SSCC Preparatory Action.

Main Results:

• Five key enablers of interoperability-by-design: modular data architectures, shared governance, lightweight semantic alignment, interoperability clauses in procurement, and capacity building.
• Foundational MIMs (Accessing, Representing, Interlinking, Securing, and Sharing Data) and application-specific MIMs (Personal Data, Geospatial, Interoperable AI, Local Digital Twin) support data sharing.
• Challenges include uneven capacity, vendor lock-in, and variable conformance maturity.

Conclusions:

• MIMs Plus translates the European Interoperability Framework into actionable mechanisms for data spaces.
• Interoperability is positioned as a continuous governance capability essential for scalable and trustworthy smart community data spaces.