Business Building Blocks

The business building blocks help each data space define how it creates and sustains value within its ecosystem. They provide direction for making strategic choices about purpose, financial sustainability, and the value shared among participants.

Whether your initiative serves the public interest, operates in a specific sector, or aims for commercial viability, these building blocks guide you in shaping a model that balances collective benefit with individual incentives. They help you clarify how your data space interacts with its stakeholders, what services and data products are offered, and how participants experience tangible value from collaboration.

At the centre of this pillar lies the connection between data space offerings (the data, services, and governance elements that enable participation) and the use cases they support. Together, these define how your ecosystem operates and grows sustainably over time.

By approaching the business model as a shared framework rather than a single owner’s plan, each participant can contribute to and benefit from a trustworthy, interoperable, and future-ready data-sharing environment (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.