COCIR welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback to the European Commission’s proposal for a Data Governance Act. COCIR has in the past presented its views on the European Strategy for Data as well as on the inception impact assessment of a data governance framework for common European data spaces.

COCIR fully endorses the Commission’s view that the availability of and access to data holds immense potential for innovation and value creation, and that this will greatly contribute to the recovery and resilience of our society following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leading the digital health innovation, COCIR and its members strongly believe in the crucial role the use and sharing of data plays in addressing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic crisis, and the structural role the European Health Data Space will play in the further development of preventive and personalised healthcare, driving research and innovation, leading to better outcomes for patients and the society as a whole.

Please refer to attached document for detailed feedback.

In summary, COCIR considers the Data Governance Act proposal to be an important step in enabling common European data spaces, and in building trust with organisations and citizens. At the same time COCIR would like to caution on provisions that may jeopardise consistency and coherence with existing regulations and initiatives, especially the General Data Protection Regulation.

The success of common European data spaces will further depend on the sector-specific context and frameworks that will need to be created. In this regard, COCIR is warmly welcoming the initiative of the European Commission to establish a legislative framework for a European Health Data Space and will in due time provide its expert feedback, drawing from its vast and long-term experience of improving care provision through innovative and digital health technologies.

COCIR remains fully committed to working with the European Institutions, the Member States and other involved stakeholders in creating a robust data governance framework that will be able to support all common European data spaces, driving new opportunities for research and innovation and building a stronger and more resilient EU economy and society.