2025 will be remembered as the year when digital sovereignty moved from a strategic ambition to a geopolitical priority worldwide. The global news cycle (marked by accelerated geopolitical realignments, renewed concerns about technological dependency, and disruptions in global supply chains) has made one thing clear: nations and industries need trusted, transparent, and sovereign digital infrastructures. And at the heart of this transformation lies an essential building block: dataspaces. They offer the mechanisms to share data across sectors, borders, and organizations with strong guarantees of control, interoperability, and trust, precisely the capabilities the world now urgently seeks.
In Europe, this shift has been particularly visible. After setting a global benchmark with the Data Governance Act, the Data Act, and the AI Act, the EU continued this trajectory in November with the publication of the Digital Omnibus Package, a major legislative milestone that, once again, highlights dataspaces as a key enabler for a trustworthy and sovereign digital economy. The package reinforces Europe’s leadership by recognizing shared data infrastructures as essential to economic resilience, fair competition, and citizen empowerment. Meanwhile, interest in trusted data sharing is expanding rapidly beyond Europe: from Asia-Pacific initiatives on secure cross-border data flows to North American efforts around verifiable credentials and federated interoperability. The move toward dataspaces is no longer regional, it is global.
EDWG in 2025: growth, standards, and global engagement
Against this backdrop, 2025 has been an exceptional year for the Eclipse Dataspace Working Group.
New members strengthening our strategic foundations
We proudly welcomed two major strategic members:
- TNO (Netherlands), reinforcing our leadership in applied research and innovation.
- NIIS (Finland), bringing deep expertise in secure digital public infrastructures.
We also welcomed our first Participant Member: Libelium (Spain), whose engagement demonstrates the growing relevance of dataspaces for SMEs and solution providers. This expansion strengthens our ecosystem and increases the diversity and reach of our community.
A breakthrough year for standardisation
One of the most important achievements of 2025 has been the initiation of the ISO/IEC PAS transposition of the Eclipse Dataspace Protocol (DSP) and the Eclipse Dataspace Decentralised Claims Protocol (DCP). As highlighted in our recent announcements, this is a historic milestone: it marks the beginning of the formal international standardisation of the protocols that enable interoperability across dataspaces.
This work positions EDWG technologies at the core of the next generation of trusted data sharing infrastructures worldwide. We expect the full suite of EDWG protocols to follow the same path throughout 2026.
A year of strong presence across key events and standards bodies
Our engagement this year has been extensive and global. At the ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC38 meetings in Berlin and Letterkenny, we actively contributed to shaping the future of cloud and distributed platforms. Similarly, at CEN/CENELEC JTC 25 meetings in the Netherlands and Germany, we advanced European alignment around dataspaces and interoperability.
Beyond formal standardisation, the EDWG community has been visible and vocal across a rich ecosystem of events, including industry conferences, research forums, digital sovereignty summits, and workshops around public sector innovation. This outreach has significantly strengthened our ecosystem and boosted awareness of the EDWG’s mission and technological contributions.
Looking ahead to 2026: adoption, interoperability, and certification
As we move into 2026, our ambition is clear: interoperability is now proven, adoption must follow.
Our priorities for the year include:
Completing the interoperability stack through continued standardisation
We will push forward with the ongoing ISO/IEC PAS processes and bring the remaining EDWG protocols into the standardisation pipeline. By 2026, the dataspace community should be able to rely on a fully standardised and globally recognised protocol suite.
Accelerating adoption at scale
Dataspaces began with sector specific pilots and publicly funded initiatives. Over the past few years, we worked to ensure these isolated successes can connect through interoperable protocols. Now, the focus shifts to adoption: ensuring that the technologies, specifications, and open source components developed within the community are widely implemented across industries, sectors, and regions.
Exploring a certification approach for the ecosystem
To support adoption, we will explore how to structure a flexible yet robust certification framework that can adapt to the diverse “flavours” of dataspaces while ensuring a strong and consistent guarantee of interoperability. Such a framework will be essential for trust, procurement, and transparency across the broader ecosystem.
Together toward a sovereign digital future
2025 has shown what a committed and collaborative community can achieve. The progress of the EDWG is the direct result of our members’ dedication, expertise, and shared vision for a world where data can flow with trust, control, sovereignty, and interoperability.
As we enter 2026, the opportunity ahead is bigger than ever. By working together (research institutions, companies, governments, open source communities, and standardisation bodies) we can turn dataspaces from a promising architecture into a global reality.
Here’s to a year of progress, community, and shared ambition, let’s continue building the future of digital sovereignty together.
