About ISA²

ISA² is the follow-up programme to ISA, which ran from 2010-2015. The new programme will:

• ensure that interoperability activities are well coordinated at EU level;
• develop and operate solutions for the public administrations on the basis of businesses’ and citizens’ needs;
• put in place the necessary instruments to boost interoperability at EU and national level, such as:
  
  • a revised European Interoperability  Framework (EIF);
  • a revised European Interoperability  Strategy (EIS);
  • an  Architecture, the European Interoperability Reference Architecture (EIRA);
  • a  Cartography of solutions, the European Interoperability Cartography (EIC).

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European Interoperability Timeline

The programme is managed by the  Interoperability Unit of DG Informatics of the European Commission, DIGIT.D2.

The Member States play an active role through their participation in:

• the  ISA² Committee, the high level governmental body of the programme;
• the  ISA² Coordination group, a technical body mandated to ensure horizontal coherence between the programme’s actions.

The programme is implemented through annual rolling work programmes. This means that there will be five of them for the period 2016-2020.

Each annual work programme undergoes the following phases:

• Submission: A call for proposals is addressed to:
  
  • the Member States and other countries participating in ISA²
  • the Commission services
• Evaluation:
  
  • the Interoperability Unit presents a list of proposals that qualify to be included in the work programme, on the basis of the selection and prioritisation criteria defined by the ISA² decision
  • the ISA² Committee gives an opinion on the proposed action list
• Adoption: The work programme is adopted by the Commission and the budget is released.
• Implementation: The work programme actions are implemented by the European Commission services in charge of the specific actions.

The ISA² Programme has a budget of EUR 131 million, distributed over the 5-year duration of the programme.

Funds are not allocated to entities outside the European Commission (i.e. in the form of grants).

The European Commission services in charge of the various actions implement them in accordance with the European public procurement rules.

The monitoring and evaluation of ISA² are carried out through various streams under the monitoring and evaluation action, in particular:

• monthly monitoring of the implemented actions and publication of results on the ISA² dashboard
• annual reporting to the ISA² Committee
• an interim evaluation of the ISA² programme by 30 September 2019
• a final evaluation of the ISA² programme by 31 December 2021

The ISA unit ensures coordination with other relevant Commission services (i.e. DG DIGIT, DG CNECT, DG GROW …) and related initiatives, such as:

• the context of the Digital Single Market Strategy, notably the Priority ICT Standards Plan, and the EU Catalogue of ICT standards
• the European eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020
• the CEF-Digital (the 'Connecting Europe Facility')
• the IT Governance of the European Commission
• similar interoperability-specific or policy-specific initiatives at EU level

Click the image to enlarge the diagram.

Current status:  Implementation

On 4 March 2020, the European Commission adopted the 5th work programme under the ISA² Programme.

• Total annual budget: roughly EUR 27.8 million
• Total number of actions: 54
• Actions are grouped around 9 themes: 
  • Key and generic interoperability enablers (7 actions)
  • Semantic interoperability (4 actions)
  • Access to data / data sharing / open data (7 actions)
  • Geospatial solutions (1 action)
  • eProcurement / eInvoicing (1 action)
  • Decision-making and legislation (10 actions)
  • EU policies (5 actions)
  • Supporting instruments for public administrations (17 actions)
  • Accompanying measures (2 actions)
• Relevant documents: 
  • Detailed description of the actions, part 1
  • Detailed description of the actions, part 2
  • Indicative planning and financial overview

Current status:  Implementation

On 26 March 2019, the European Commission adopted the 4th work programme under the ISA² Programme.

• Total annual budget: roughly EUR 27.1 million
• Proposals:
  • Submitted by Member States and Commission services: 3 
  • Accepted to become new work programme actions: 1
  • Included in ongoing actions: 2
• Paused/finished actions: 10
• Total number of actions: 54
• Actions are grouped around 9 themes: 
  • Key and generic interoperability enablers (7 actions)
  • Semantic interoperability (4 actions)
  • Access to data / data sharing / open data (7 actions)
  • Geospatial solutions (1 action)
  • eProcurement / eInvoicing (1 action)
  • Decision-making and legislation (10 actions)
  • EU policies (5 actions)
  • Supporting instruments for public administrations (17 actions)
  • Accompanying measures (2 actions)
• Relevant documents: 
  • Summary
  • Detailed description of the actions, part 1
  • Detailed description of the actions, part 2
  • Indicative planning and financial overview

Current status:  Implementation

On 20 March 2018, the European Commission adopted the 3rd work programme under the ISA² Programme.

• Total annual budget: roughly EUR 26.4 million
• Proposals:
  • Submitted by Member States and Commission services: 14 
  • Accepted to become new work programme actions: 10 
• Paused/finished actions: 7
• Total number of actions: 53
• Actions are grouped around 9 themes:
  • Key and generic interoperability enablers (7 actions)
  • Semantic interoperability (4 actions)
  • Access to data / data sharing / open data (7 actions)
  • Geospatial solutions (1 action)
  • eProcurement / eInvoicing (1 action)
  • Decision-making and legislation (10 actions)
  • EU policies (5 actions)
  • Supporting instruments for public administrations (16 actions)
  • Accompanying measures (2 actions)
• Relevant documents:
  • Summary
  • Detailed description of the actions, part 1
  • Detailed description of the actions, part 2
  • Financial overview

Current status:  Implementation

On 23 March 2017, the European Commission adopted the 2nd work programme under the ISA² Programme.

• Total annual budget: roughly EUR 25.5 million
• Proposals:
  
  • Submitted by Member States and Commission services: 10
  • Accepted to become new work programme actions: 4
• Paused actions: 7
• Total number of actions: 36
• Actions were grouped around 9 themes:
  
  • Key and generic interoperability enablers (5 actions)
  • Semantic interoperability (3 actions)
  • Access to data / data sharing / open data (4 actions)
  • Geospatial solutions (1 action)
  • eProcurement / eInvoicing (1 action)
  • Decision-making and legislation (7 actions)
  • EU policies (2 actions)
  • Supporting instruments for public administrations (11 actions)
  • Accompanying measures (2 actions)
• Relevant documents:
  
  • Summary
  • Detailed description of the actions, part 1
  • Detailed description of the actions, part 2  
  • Financial overview  

Current status:  Implementation 

On 19 April 2016, the European Commission adopted the 1st work programme under the new ISA² Programme.

• Total annual budget: roughly  EUR 24 million
• Proposals:
  
  • Submitted by Member States and Commission services: 52
  • Proposals accepted to become work programme actions:  39
• Actions were grouped around 9 themes:
  
  • Key and generic interoperability enablers (6 actions)
  • Semantic interoperability (3 actions)
  • Access to data / data sharing / open data (5 actions)
  • Geospatial solutions (1 action)
  • e-Procurement / e-Invoicing (1 action)
  • Decision making and legislation (6 actions)
  • EU policies (3 actions)
  • Supporting instruments for public administrations (12 actions)
  • Accompanying measures (2 actions)
• Relevant documents:
  
  • Summary of the work programme
  • Detailed work programme
  • Financial overview

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