CSC - IT Center for Science

Scientific research, especially health and biomedical research rely on access to personal data, for example to develop AI tools for earlier diagnosis, personalised treatments that enable cost-effective healthcare. The GDPR has strengthened privacy and data protection, but fragmented national interpretations hinder cross-border research, slowing innovation and reducing Europes competitiveness potential.

The competitiveness of Europes tech sector depends largely on an enabling legislative framework. To be enabling, the legislative framework must be coherent and understandable. Thus, CSC warmly supports the Commissions ambition to simplify EU regulation in the fields of data, cyber and AI.

The Digital Networks Act (DNA) represents an important step toward strengthening Europes digital infrastructure and supporting competitiveness, resilience and the functioning of the single market. At the same time, the proposal reflects an ongoing structural shift in the digital landscape. Connectivity is increasingly intertwined with cloud, data, AI, quantum and high-performance computing infrastructures.

CSC welcomes the European Commissions proposal for funding competitiveness in the next MFF, particularly its emphasis on digital leadership within the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) and Horizon Europe (HE).

AI will have a significant impact on Europe’s competitiveness and wellbeing of citizens. It is crucial to support the development of European AI technologies and applications both financially, and by building an interoperable, horizontal ecosystem of European state-of-the-art data and HPC infrastructures.

CSC sees the review of the Directive 2019/790/EC on Copyright in the Digital Single Market as an opportunity to improve the copyright legislation to strike the right balance between safeguarding intellectual property and supporting data-driven research and innovation, including AI development.

CSC agrees with the three interconnected structural challenges that have been identified as the main problems to be addressed by the European Commissions upcoming Education Package, in particular the lack of sovereign digital education infrastructure.

Today's most disruptive innovations emerge from combining vast amounts of data from various sources. It is safe to say that data is the most valuable raw material of innovation. The European Innovation Act must prioritise creating optimal conditions for finding and using data for innovation purposes.

The societal importance of data is growing as it has become a key raw material for new business, research and knowledge-based decision-making. Europe’s future success depends to a large extent on how we manage the emerging data society and ensure availability and re-usability of good-quality data for all legitimate purposes.

CSC's full position paper to the EC White Paper How to master Europes digital infrastructure needs?' is attached. Brief summary of the position paper: The White Paper How to master Europes digital infrastructure needs?' emphasises the need to enhance Europe's digital network infrastructure to bolster competitiveness and security, but it could better address the link between competitiveness and a functional research…

CSC recognises the need to update the regulation of the digital services market in order to adapt it to the evolving operating environment and to make the market safer and fairer for consumers as well as service providers of different types and sizes. The Commission’s proposal for a Digital Services Act contributes to this endeavour and is therefore highly appreciated.

CSC strongly agrees with the need to make better use of electronic health data both in primary healthcare and secondary uses, such as research and policy-making, as this will bring tangible benefits to all Europeans in the form of more efficient healthcare systems, development of new treatments and personalised medicine as well as better informed decision-making in the health sector.

CSC agrees with the objectives of the planned regulatory framework for a European Health Data Space and supports its establishment. However, it must be ensured that the sector-specific data spaces and their respective legislative frameworks do not become silos but are developed in coherence, making them interoperable and thus supporting the ultimate goal of creating one unified European data space.

CSC supports the idea of a horizontal governance model for the common European data spaces, based on a comprehensive interoperability framework, where different levels of interoperability are developed in coherence. The European Interoperability Framework, developed by the European Commission, serves as a good basis.

CSC supports the objectives of the Chips Act 2.0 proposal to strengthen Europe's semiconductor ecosystem, reduce strategic dependencies, and enhance Europe's technological sovereignty. Semiconductors are foundational to Europe's competitiveness, serving as key enablers of AI, HPC and other strategic capabilities.

CSC considers cybersecurity as one of the key issues of the digital decade and welcomes the Commissions intention to complement the related European regulatory framework with a Cyber Resilience Act. In our view, the proposal recognises cybersecurity risks of digital products and solutions adequately based on well-established international best security practices, and proposes a justified and comprehensive governance…

CSC welcomes the European strategy on research and technology infrastructures, recognising its important role in providing a long-term framework for developing and coordinating these strategic capacities. Digital infrastructures are key enablers for breakthroughs in research and innovation across disciplines and sectors, providing a shared foundation for researchers and innovators to exchange data, methods, and…

CSC welcomes the intention to support research, innovation, investments and supply chains related to quantum technologies with an EU Quantum Act. The governance and funding models developed through the Act must reflect the fact that quantum technologies are convergence technologies: they must be developed alongside high-performance computing (HPC), cloud/edge compute, trusted data spaces, and AI capabilities.

CSC strongly supports the EUs goal to boost the performance of Europes research and innovation system with an ERA Act that incentivises RDI spending, better integration and coordination of national and EU-level efforts.

Europe's technological competitiveness depends on a regulatory environment that genuinely enables digitalisation and data-driven research and innovation. CSC thanks the European Commission for the effort to check EU legislation broadly from this point of view, as EU legislation often remains too fragmented and complex, limiting cross border data use and slowing research and innovation.

CSC welcomes the Commission’s proposal and especially its ambition to further harmonise the level of cybersecurity across the EU by expanding the scope of the Directive, spelling out many of its requirements in more detail and equipping the Member States with more stringent supervision and enforcement powers.

The data economy development has the potential to boost research and innovation, that are highly necessary for enhancing the wellbeing and competitiveness of Europe in the future. The proposal for an implementing act of the Open Data Directive on High-Value Datasets (HVDs) is one of the key tools in implementing the European Strategy for Data and opening and expanding the data economy.

Developing data economy boosts innovation that is crucial for Europe's future competitiveness and wellbeing. In order to support this development, Europe must make efforts to improve both the quality and quantity of freely available data.

The sustainability of the ICT sector is central to achieving the EUs climate objectives and to safeguarding the long-term competitiveness of the industry, which cannot overlook ambitious climate, energy and environmental commitments.

CSC agrees with the need to review the Digital Decade targets and objectives considering the technological and geopolitical developments since the adoption of the Digital Decade policy programme in 2022. Please find attached CSCs position paper where we suggest updates to the programme to promote 1) high-quality data for ethical AI and European innovation, 2) data infrastructures for technological sovereignty, 3)…

CSC supports the idea of creating a European Digital Identity as this would greatly facilitate cross-border access to services as well as cross-border mobility, including in the key fields of education and research.

Digitalisation as a systemic change, and its deep societal impact, must be taken into account in all policymaking. CSC therefore welcomes the Commission’s proposal that draws the attention of politicians, civil servants and other stakeholders to the various dimensions of digitalisation both at European and national levels.

As the Digital Decade process is moving to its next stages, CSC wants to reiterate the importance of the green and human-centric approach that is quite prominent in the roadmap for the Digital Compass communication published in February.

Emerging technologies, such as AI, are important drivers of Europes future competitiveness and wellbeing of citizens. In order to ensure that Europe will be at the forefront of technological development, the EU must create a coherent and enabling regulatory framework for the development of European AI technologies and applications, keeping in mind what the EU aims to achieve with new technologies in general.

CSC recognises the vital importance of semiconductor chips for digital economy as well as the need to take action to ensure their availability in Europe. Therefore, we welcome the Commission’s proposal for a European Chips Act and, in particular, its emphasis on research and skills as these are the most crucial elements of sustainable future prosperity and technological leadership for Europe.

Interoperability is a cornerstone of a well-functioning single market and European data economy. The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) plays a key role in advancing interoperability by drawing attention to all four layers of interoperability (legal, organisational, semantic, technical) and making recommendations from that starting point.

CSC considers cybersecurity as one of the key issues of the digital decade and welcomes the Commissions intention to strengthen EU action in the sector and support it with an adequate regulatory framework. A key issue to keep in mind when developing the EU cybersecurity policy is to avoid creating incoherences or overlaps when establishing new regulations and governance structures.