Directory of Cross Border Products and Services

This Directory falls under the third of the five ePSIplus themes: ‘Encouraging PSI re-use business’. Its goal is to identify existing and planned businesses in which:

• PSI is re-used by the private sector in order create an added value product or service; and
• The information or data used is drawn from public sector sources in at least two different countries.

The main purpose of the work is to demonstrate in which information sectors Europe has already traveled toward establishing cross-border or pan-European products or services based on PSI re-use, to assess the extent of progress and to help establish what may remain to be done to support the creation of such services.

The aim is to identify up to 150 cross-border products or services, should such a number exist, with a target of 50 by the end of the first year of the Directory’s existence (August 2008).

By describing and classifying the products or services according to a common schema, it is intended to provide a means of assessing the demand for PSI-based products and services in such a way as to support inter-sectoral comparison, learning and analysis of what makes some sectors more successful in PSI re-use business and what lessons can be transferred e.g. what business models appear to work?

A by-product of bringing together as many product/service descriptions as possible in one Directory, it is also hoped to raise awareness of and stimulate interest in the potential to create business from PSI re-use, among private sector companies, especially SMEs. Towards the end of ePSIplus’ work, it is hoped that this information will be sufficiently detailed and its coverage sufficiently wide to support, as part of a report to be published by ePSIplus (Summative Report on Private Sector Engagement in PSI). This will include clarification of specific barriers which may constrain the creation of a larger number of Pan-European or cross-border products and services based on PSI, including those which relate to general linguistic and cultural factors and those which relate more specifically to access and licensing of PSI across public administrations in different countries.

To this end, the descriptive schema for each product/service seeks to establish, among other things:

• its nature and intended audience;
• the main source of the PSI which it has re-used;
• how the PSI fits within the product/service as a whole;
• the value which it adds to the ‘raw’ PSI;
• the overall business model; and
• what impact the Directive appears to have had on the business model and the provision of the service.

The number and range of products/services in this Directory is being expanded continuously.

Contributions of additional Cross Border Services and Products not already listed are welcome and can be sent to the ePSIplus team for publication on this site.