EU 'Open Data' promotion could benefit UK Economy

The European Union’s moves towards an open data directive, updating the terms of the reuse of public sector information, will create 58,000 jobs in the UK up to 2017 and will add £216bn to the country’s economy, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

Mikael Hagstrom, executive vice-president for the EMEA region of SAS, a statistical software supplier, says the directive will help the EU to tackle Europe’s youth unemployment and stimulate economic growth. To achieve this, he argues it is essential to put the next generation of skills into the workplace.

...The CEBR produced a report in June 2013 for SAS, entitled Data on the Balance Sheet, which argues that big data should be an asset that should appear as an intangible asset on a balance sheet because it can generate financial and economic value. The value is derived from the insight and use of the knowledge that is gained from data analytics.