Political background

Information has been defined as the new oil for the knowledge industries. Information coming from the public sector (PSI) has been described by Vice-president of the European Union Neelie Kroes as a “gold mine of opportunities and the new oil”

Similar statements remarking this importance can be found in (Shapiro & Varian, 1999; Castells, 2000).
The PSI publishing has attracted the attention of policy makers since its beginning. Strangely, it received an extensive support before having a sound modelling of the discipline, but without showing real proofs of their economic impact (EU, 2003; UK, 2005; OECD, 2006; Spain, 2007). As Burton has stated “The commercial re-use of public sector information (PSI) is clearly appealing for governments and their agencies” (Burdon, 2009). Possibly due to it, some of these policies are being reviewed (EU, 2013a).
An improved access to and use of PSI has been identified as of major importance for all economies (OECD, 2006; Vickery, 2013).
The European Union provides a consistent support in its research priorities to PSI reuse, which is consistent because it started as soon as 2000 (PIRA, 2000) and remains now (2013). Future support is also drafted in the Horizon 2020 R+D programme focusing on information related with research, Open access, so public supported research results were available for other research bodies and initiatives (EU, 2013b).

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