Interview

With the Energy Act coming into force on 1 January, the Netherlands has taken an important step towards transparent, secure and sovereign energy data. A central role in this transition has been assigned to Het Normo, which has officially been designated as the Data Exchange Entity (in Dutch: gegevensuitwisselingsentiteit, GUE)
Do you want your data sharing initiative to unlock the true value of data and take the step from ambition to scalable impact? Then we invite you to take part in the Impact Challenge, the official launch of our new Data Sharing Valorisation Program (Data SVP!). 
During a Community Meeting on 22 January, the Centre of Excellence for Digital Product Passports (CoE DPP) presented the DPP Landscape Scan and DPP Adoption Pulse to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate. The reports show where the Netherlands currently stands and what is needed from government to take the next step.
The Data Act has come into effect since September 12, 2025. We spoke with Rex Leijenaar (Team manager/MT member Telecom and Digital at Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets - ACM) and Gijs van Houwelingen (researcher at TNO/CoE-DSC) about this topic.
Trust frameworks are the backbone of sovereign data sharing. Discover a range of publications that CoE-DSC has contributed to.
Three quarters of global cloud capacity is managed by three so-called hyperscalers: Microsoft, Google and Amazon Web Services. In the discussion about the need for (more) sovereignty, there are also calls for a European equivalent. Peter Verkoulen discusses this topic.
The task for Rijkswaterstaat is to ensure that the Netherlands remains safe, liveable and accessible. Digitisation should help achieve this. Furthermore, Rijkswaterstaat is investing heavily in its sovereignty, and creating a government cloud is one of the ideas.
We spoke with Jan Merckx (Sustainability Lead at GS1 Netherlands) and Sjoerd Rongen (Digital Product Passports Lead at TNO) about DPP standardisation.
Organisations and businesses have been dealing with digital data for decades. So why is there so much excitement about the data economy? Why is progress and growth increasingly dependent on our ability to share and exchange data? In 'Campus - Understanding data economy', Gaia-X Hub Germany organises various courses about data related topics, amongst others the above questions.
It’s now or never: if the Netherlands fails to act, our position as a frontrunner in data and cloud will slip to the middle of the pack. With this warning, Frits Grotenhuis, Director of the Topsector ICT, and Peter Verkoulen, Programme Director of the Centre of Excellence for Data Sharing & Cloud (CoE-DSC), underline the urgency of coordinated action.
On June 6, Jewish Heritage Network leading the EU-funded project European Memory Data Space (EMDS) organised an event about data spaces at the Dutch National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam. Pavel Kats (co-founder of Jewish Heritage Network, JHN) and Yekaterina Travkina (consultant at INNOPAY and researcher at the CoE-DSC) share their key take-aways.
Provide feedback on various topics related to Digital Product Passports (DPPs) before 18 August.
We spoke with Sjoerd Rongen, Digital Product Passports Lead at TNO and associated with the CoE-DSC, about the status of Digital Product Passports (DPPs).

Join us for the DPP Festival on October 9, 2025! Unlocking the Future of Digital Product Passports We are excited to invite you to the DPP Festival on October 9, […]

The energy transition can proceed more effectively and efficiently with new knowledge about sharing data, with a central role for the availability, quality and privacy of the data.  NWO invites […]