Value of Information – Assessing Social and Economic Benefits in the
Context of SDI and PSI
Morten Lind
Senior Advisor, Danish Enterprise and Construction Authority, Copenhagen, Denmark
A major challenge in the development of a spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is the
process of making spatial data sets and services interoperable, available and “fit for
use”. This process requires a sustainable, long term funding, which is not easy to get in
years where public budgets are tight.
Similar challenges meet public stakeholders who see opportunities in making their data
available for commercial or non commercial purposes, using the ideas of “open data”
and public sector information (PSI) re-use.
If not before, now is the time where public spending and investments in reference data
and -services must be convincingly justified in a positive business case that proves
“value for money”.
This presentation will discuss the term “value of information” and how to measure it,
within the context of spatial data infrastructures (e.g. INSPIRE1) and public sector
information (as defined e.g. in the PSI directive2). Based on a number of business cases
and case studies of social and economic impact, the presentation will describe different
approaches on how to measure and categorize benefits for government, business and
society at large.
The presentation will describe the method and findings in a study published by Danish
Enterprise and Construction Authority (DECA) in July 20103. The report assesses the
social and economic benefits associated with the decision in 2002 to make the official
Danish address data available without license, for public as well as commercial re-use.
As a conclusion of the study, the direct financial benefits from the agreement were, for
the first five years, measured to around EUR 62 million. In 2010 a value of at least EUR
14 million has been estimated, which in comparison with the relatively small costs
results in a return of investment (ROI) of 70:1.
The presentation will go through the methodology of business cases which have their
focus on interoperability of spatial building data and on the availability of online data
services in an eGov strategy, based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA).
As address data and building information are both INSPIRE annex data themes and core
examples of PSI data, widely asked for by the private sector, these examples will be
1
http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/
2
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm
3
http://www.adresse-info.dk/Portals/2/Benefit/Value_Assessment_Danish_Address_Data_UK_2010-07-07b.pdf
used to present the similarities as well as the differences of measuring value of infor-
mation within the domains of SDI and PSI.
As a conclusion, the presentation will discuss how the efforts to build SDIs and to
release PSI-data, fits into a political agenda that focuses on innovation, knowledge
economy, creation of jobs and energy efficiency.