The EU Member States are making visible progress with regard to their Open Data transformation journey, with many Open Data initiatives as well as portals being launched each year. However in order to ensure such data infrastructures remain relevant over time, a series of aspects should be considered and embedded in the design stages of any Open Data portal.
Portals play an essential role in the promotion of Open Data practices across within each country and region, as they represent central points to publish and access datasets. Their development however can be seen as a spill-over of the increased promotion and impact of Open Data. For this reason they have largely been seen as government-led initiatives, launched for the purpose of publishing government datasets – hence with the supply-side in mind, and less as a demand-driven approach. This drive by publishers and portal owners, often to meet mandates, can only take portals so far.