The European Innovation Spaces (or i-Spaces) are trusted data incubators with a mission to accelerate the uptake of data-driven innovation in commercial and non-profit sectors.
i-Spaces enable stakeholders to develop new businesses, facilitated by advanced Big Data Value (BDV) technologies, applications, and business models. The foundation of i-Spaces is an existing infrastructure that can be based on a geographic, sectoral or company-ground or a combination of them.
i-Spaces:

• Bring technology and application developments together and catering for the development of skills, competence, and best practices.
• Ensure that data is at the centre of Big Data Value activities. i-Spaces make accessible data assets based on industrial, private and open data sources.
• Serve as incubators for testing and benchmarking of technologies, applications, and business models.
• Develop skills and sharing of best practices linking with other existing initiatives at European and national-levels.
• Foster data-driven communities and accelerate value creation.

I-Spaces contribute to community building and act as incubators of data-driven innovation. BDVA i-Spaces ensure that innovations and research on BDV technologies and novel BDV applications can be quickly tested, piloted and exploited. The main goal is to develop skills and share best practices, to expand new business models and evaluate societal impact.
In particular, at societal level, i-Spaces support the adoption of digitalisation in SMEs, they bring services for local governments and they provide digital solutions for policy development.

What do i-Spaces mean to EGI and to the Big Data Value?

The Big Data Value Association advertised and granted a label for European Innovation Spaces to help drive Big Data adoption across all domains of European industry. Every year, existing hubs can obtain a label as a “BDVA i-Space”.

The Big Data Value Association (BDVA) has granted eight i-Space labels this year and one of them was awarded to the EGI Federation. The EGI Federation is now accredited as one of the key data-driven innovation centres in both commercial and non-profit domains.

The announcement was made during the European Big Data Value Forum in Versailles. Labelled i-Spaces exchange good practices to promote data innovation all over Europe.