e-SENS

European public administrations face many new challenges due to today's widespread use of digital technologies. These range from semantic, organisational and legal issues to questions regarding the technical interoperability of ICT solutions. There is strong interest among European Member States in creating a single digital market, but differences in public service delivery still create barriers to interoperability, mobility and competitiveness. A number of successful Large Scale Pilot (LSP) projects have been launched in recent years by the European Commission to develop cross-border solutions in the domains of e-Justice, Business Start-up, eHealth and eProcurement. These are e-CODEX, epSOS, PEPPOL, and three projects in which LIST was a partner, SPOCS, STORK and the ongoing project STORK 2.0.

e-SENS was created with the objective of consolidating and solidifying the results of these earlier projects, industrialising the solutions developed, and extending them to a wider range of domains. This LSP, launched within the ICT Policy Support Programme under the EU's Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP), saw 100 partners from 20 European countries work together to develop a common Europe-wide infrastructure for interoperable public services.

e-SENS focused on developing the core building blocks of e-ID, e-Documents, e-Delivery, and e-Signatures and semantics, which will form the foundation of a cross-border digital infrastructure. These building blocks were then tested through pilot projects in the domains of e-Health, e-Justice, Business Start-up and e-Procurement to ensure their usability and scalability. The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology was the coordinator for the Luxembourgish consortium, which also consisted of Agence eSanté, which manages the national platform for sharing electronic health records. An e-Health pilot ws carried out in Luxembourg, with the aim of developing solutions for electronic data sharing in the healthcare sector that are interoperable with those of other European countries.

e-SENS resulted in a common infrastructure for interoperable public services, providing the foundations for the e-Government platform foreseen in the Connecting Europe Facility draft regulation. It will allow for greater interoperability across European public administrations and will help lead to the creation of a single digital market in Europe. Member States, businesses and citizens will all benefit from the availability of interoperable and open source technical solutions that will enable public services that improve the freedom of citizens to travel, live and do business within other countries in the EU. Luxembourg will benefit from new cross-border interoperability of medical procedures and electronic patient record sharing, which will make it easier to access unplanned healthcare while on holiday abroad, or to consult specialist physicians that are not available in Luxembourg due to the size of the country.

Learn more in the presentation below: