What is the EU Datathon 2018?

The Publications Office of the European Union is organising the EU Datathon 2018. EU Datathon is a competition intended to highlight the potential of linking EU and national data as well as to promote the reuse of open data. Participants are invited to develop apps using at least one dataset produced by the EU Institutions or Agencies available on the EU Open Data Portal. 

The partners of the EU Datathon 2018 are the Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, the European Data Portal, the European Food Safety Authority, the ELI Task Force (European Legislation Identifier) and the ISA² programme.

What are the objectives?

• To produce innovative applications, including visualisations.
• To showcase the advantages of the ELI.
• To highlight the potential of EU public procurement data.
• To promote the reuse of open data as an enabler in the growing data economy.
• To stimulate the use of open data issued from public administrations.
• To engage with new audiences.

The rules are based on Article 138 of the Financial Regulation (FR) and its Rules of Application (RAP). The competition will respect the principles of transparency and equal treatment.

• The EU Datathon 2018 is open to anyone, including data scientists, computer programmers, graphic and interface designers, data journalists, data community activists, IT project managers, etc., who is interested in creatively tackling societal challenges through data exploration and/or in creating prototype products based on open data.
• The EU Datathon 2018 is open to teams composed of one or more individuals, one or more companies or one or more other legal entities based in the EU or in European Free Trade Association countries.
• Teams from the EU Datathon 2017 can only participate with a new project for this year’s application.
• The EU Datathon 2018 is not open to staff working in the EU institutions, agencies and bodies.
• By the submission of the project description, the teams declare that the application will be developed after the launch.

The EU Datathon 2018 involves four thematic challenges. Each challenge is organised as a separate competition of equal importance, under the umbrella of the competition (separate registration, shortlisted teams, presentations, jury and prizes).

Teams can register for only one of the following four challenges.

Challenge 1: ‘EU open data — For more innovation in Europe’

Condition: the goal of this challenge is to combine one dataset from the EU Open Data Portal and one dataset from the European Data Portal.

Webinar: Friday, 01/06/2018 at 11.00 via WebEx.

Challenge 2: ‘National and EU law — Make legislation interoperable’

Condition: the goal of this challenge is to show the added value using ELI for linking EU legislation and national legislation. More information here.

Webinar: Friday, 08/06/2018 at 11.00 via WebEx.

Challenge 3: ‘EU public procurement — Value for citizens, value for businesses’

Condition: the goal of this challenge is to propose a project using any public procurement data (e.g. OpenTender, TED in CSV or XML, eCertis, etc.) that adds value for European citizens, companies or public administrations.

Webinar: Friday, 15/06/2018 at 11.00 via WebEx.

Challenge 4: ‘European Food Safety Authority — Fostering data reuse and innovation’

Condition: the goal of this challenge is to come up with innovative ideas on how to use the Comprehensive European Food Consumption and/or the OpenFoodTox database. More information here.

Webinar: Friday, 22/06/2018 at 14.00 via WebEx.

What should the result be?

The result should be a new, original mobile or web application (‘the application’) that addresses a policy or societal challenge of free choice and helps improve the everyday lives of citizens. The explanatory webinars that are accessible for participants will provide more information on the features and datasets of the challenges.

Participants may request any clarification on the competition up to 5 working days before the deadline of the submission.

The requests for clarification should be submitted in writing to the following e-mail address: OP-DATATHON@publications.europa.eu.

All questions and answers will be published on the EU Datathon 2018 website.

The evaluation process will consist of two phases: preselection and final selection. 

Phase 1 — Preselection

Preselection will take place after the deadline of the submission of project descriptions. 

Project descriptions within each challenge will be evaluated by a separate preselection jury that shall be composed of at least three experts from the following EU institutions and agencies:

• The Publications Office of the European Union;
• The ELI Task Force;
• The Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs;
• The European Food Safety Authority.

During this phase, the jury will assess each submitted proposal against the preselection award criterion (see table below). For each challenge a maximum of four teams having scored the highest number of points will be preselected. All teams will be notified about the results of the preselection of the challenge they took part in.

Phase 2 — Final selection

The preselected teams (maximum four per challenge) will be invited to develop their applications to be submitted 1 week before the final event, which they will present in Brussels during the conference held on 2 October 2018. 

The final applications within each challenge will be evaluated by one final jury, which will be composed of at least five experts from within and outside the EU institutions and agencies.

The applications will be evaluated against the following final award criteria.

Step 1— Launch of competition

The EU Datathon starts with explanatory webinars addressing four different challenges and will allow teams to learn more about the datasets they are interested in.

Step 2 — Submission of project descriptions

Teams register their project descriptions for their mobile or web application using the online form at the latest by 23:59:59 on 15 July 2018.

Step 3 — Notification of shortlisted teams

The project descriptions are assessed by the jury of the preselection phase. Shortlisted teams are notified about the results within their challenge via email on 27 July 2018.

Step 4 — Submission of the application

Teams submit their final proposals for evaluation by 23 September 2018 to the Publications Office via the following email address: OP-DATATHON@publications.europa.eu.

Step 5 — Final conference in Brussels

The preselected teams (represented by a maximum of two members) are invited to the final conference in Brussels on 2 October 2018, which will include:

• pitch presentations and demonstrations of the projects by the teams (7-10 minutes each);
• speeches from international open data experts on relevant topics;
• announcement of the winners and awards ceremony.

The prize money is EUR 40 000 in total (EUR 10 000 for each challenge) and will be split in the following order for each challenge.

Pursuant to Article 63 of the Rules of Application, the payments of prizes are subject to registration of the winners in the Legal Entity (LEF) and bank account file (BAF) database of the European Commission. For this purpose, after being notified of the prize winners are required to provide the necessary supporting documents dully signed and stamped where necessary. Additional information as well as the forms for the creation of the LEF/BAF can be downloaded here. 

The Publications Office and any partners take no responsibility regarding the distribution of the prize money within the teams.

Shortlisted teams are entitled to the reimbursement of travel and accommodation expenses incurred in relation to the conference provided that it has been purchased the day of the notification of the shortlisted teams at the earliest and on the day of the conference at the latest. No other costs will be reimbursed. Further details will be send via e-mail.

The Publications Office reserves the right to terminate the competition before the final conference without any obligation to indemnify the teams.

Participation in other competitions

The team must inform the Publications Office, when submitting their proposal, if the application has been subject of any other competition. The double prize award of the same application is not allowed.

Intellectual property and copyright 

In case teams use pre-existing material for their applications, they guarantee that they have obtained all the necessary authorisations in order for such material to be used according to the rules described above.

The project description (short description of the idea) submitted for the preselection will remain the property of the teams (authors) and will not be made public (or disclosed), but will be accessible to the jury.

The final proposals submitted for the final selectionwill remain property of the authors, but will be accessible to the jury and to all teams of the final conference. The EU institutions, agencies and bodies will be allowed to mention, describe and promote on their channels (websites, social media, press releases, etc.) the winning applications with the due reference to the author without any further economic compensation. 

Publicity

The winning applications will be featured in the ‘Applications’ section of the EU Open Data Portal. Where appropriate, the name and copyright of the authors will be mentioned.

Processing of personal data

All personal data contained in the entry shall be processed in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data (OJ L 8, 12.1.2001, p. 1). Such data shall be processed by the Publications Office solely in connection with the implementation and follow-up of the entry of the winner, without prejudice to a possible transmission to the bodies in charge of a monitoring or inspection task in accordance with European Union legislation. 

The teams may, upon written request, gain access to their personal data and correct any information that is inaccurate or incomplete. They should address any questions regarding the processing of their personal data to the Publications Office via the contact e-mail announced in the rules of the competition. The teams may, at any time, lodge a complaint against the processing of their personal data with the European Data Protection Supervisor. On the EU Datathon 2018 website the Publications Office will publish the name of the winning teams and of their members, their locality, the prize amount and the nature and purpose of their applications. Participants may request that the Publications Office waive such a publication if disclosure risks threatening their security and safety or if it could harm their commercial interest.

Sole liability of the teams

Neither the Publications Office nor the partners may be held responsible for any claim relating to the activities carried out by the team in the framework of the competition. 

Neither the Publications Office nor the partners shall be held liable for any damages caused or sustained by any of the teams, including any damages caused to third parties as a consequence of or during the implementation of the activities related to the competition.

Applicable law and competent jurisdiction

The competition is governed by the applicable European Union law complemented, where necessary, by the law of the Grand Duchy ofLuxembourg. The General Court or, on appeal, the Court of Justice of the European Union, shall have sole jurisdiction to hear any dispute between the EU and any team concerning the interpretation, entry or validity of the rules of this competition if such a dispute cannot be settled amicably.

Exclusion criteria and administrative sanctions

By submitting the project description the teams declare that they are not in one of the situations mentioned in Articles 106 and 107 of the Financial Regulation. The teams who are in any of those situations shall be excluded from participating and from being awarded a prize under the present competition.

Early Detection and Exclusion System

In case the participants are in one of the exclusion situations as stated above, personal data on them may be registered in the Early Detection and Exclusion System (EDES) in line with the Articles 105 and 108 of the Financial Regulation. For more information, see the Privacy Statement for EDES.

Checks and audits

The winning teams accept checks and audits by the European Commission, the European Anti-Fraud Office and the Court of Auditors in relation to the competition and the prize received.