Open Data Space Lab Featured as an Industry Challenge at the 2026 NL Space Summer School

How can Earth Observation become more accessible to organisations that have little or no experience working with space data? This question formed the basis of one of the industry challenges presented during the 2026 NL Space Summer School, where participants explored the Open Data Space Lab (ODL) from the perspective of future users.

Hosted by NL Space Campus, the Summer School combines lectures, workshops, company visits and project work based on real challenges proposed by organisations active in the Dutch space sector. Throughout the week, participants visited organisations including ESA ESTEC, TNO, SRON, SBIC Noordwijk and S[&]T, while also engaging with experts from Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam. Alongside these activities, interdisciplinary teams worked on assignments addressing current topics within the space sector.

The challenge proposed by dotSPACE Foundation focused on a question that extends beyond technology. As Earth Observation data becomes increasingly relevant across domains such as environmental monitoring, agriculture, infrastructure and public policy, how can organisations outside the traditional space sector discover, understand and confidently start using it?

Using the Open Data Space Lab as a case study, participants explored how different groups, including municipalities, public authorities, businesses, researchers and NGOs, might experience the platform for the first time. The assignment examined questions around accessibility, communication and trust, encouraging participants to identify barriers to adoption and develop ideas that could help make Earth Observation services easier to navigate for a broader range of users.

The Open Data Space Lab (ODL) is a sovereign data space environment facilitated by dotSPACE and developed in collaboration with the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and Rijkswaterstaat (RWS). Built on the principles of GAIA-X, a European framework for trusted and interoperable data sharing, ODL enables organisations to share access to data, algorithms and services while retaining full control over their own data. Rather than transferring raw datasets between organisations, algorithms are brought to where the data resides, with only the authorised outputs being shared. This approach is particularly relevant for sectors working with sensitive operational or regulatory data.

While platforms such as ODL continue to advance the technical foundations for secure data collaboration, wider adoption also depends on how organisations discover, understand and engage with these technologies. Activities such as the NL Space Summer School provide an opportunity to explore these questions from the perspective of future users and practitioners, bringing together technical, legal, business and communication perspectives in a single challenge.

The themes explored during the Open Data Space Lab challenge are also reflected in wider European activities around Earth Observation skills and adoption, including the SpaceSUITE and ROOT project, in which dotSPACE Foundation is a project partner.