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Governance model

RegenAg-x will be based on an Organizational Governance system that involves coordination, decision-making, and goal setting within the data space and that fosters collaboration among multiple stakeholders. A Data Space Authority will be established, acting as the entity responsible for operationalizing and maintaining such governance, including managing disputes between participants.

This authority, at least during the period operating as a demonstrator, will be the University of Lleida as the operator of the data space. Later, it will evolve towards shared governance with participants and options will be explored to establish an alternative Data Space Authority, compatible with also making the operator role sustainable, for example, as a new independent entity.

On the other hand, there is Data Sharing Governance, which regulates access to data and processing services among participants. The data space operator, as the governance authority, will set the initial rules with the requirements for onboarding participants into the demonstrator and the products and services available within it.

Initially, participants will be those listed at the beginning of this section who have already shown interest in the project by signing the letters of support attached to this application. The letters are based on a template that defines the requirements and benefits of being a participant in the demonstrator. From this initial set of participants, new ones will be incorporated, prioritizing those who complement the existing use cases or who make it possible to define new data space use cases.

For new use cases, priority will be given to those that leverage the capabilities of the demonstrator, especially those with trust requirements that can be solved with the sovereignty-by-design functionality through compute-to-data. Also those that show greater potential thanks to the monetization capabilities also provided by the demonstrator.

On the other hand, with regard to data and processing services, governance will define the rules to be followed when sharing data. In addition to being related to the agri-food sector, it will be essential to comply with the regulatory framework established at national and European level.

To maximize interoperability both within the demonstrator's data space and with those with which it will interoperate (those in the Pontus-X ecosystem and others that use Gaia-X data space federation tools), the governance structure will be organized at two levels: a Global Governance that will harmonize interoperability between different data spaces and a specific governance body for the demonstrator, the RegenAg-x Governance.

Global Governance​

Global Governance will mainly be that of the Pontus-X ecosystem as the entity responsible for defining interoperability rules between the data spaces of this ecosystem. Governance is exercised jointly by all participants acting as "federators".

It is also relevant to mention the participation of many Pontus-X members in the governance bodies of Gaia-X Europe, and the interest of that ecosystem in aligning with the specifications and components of Gaia-X for the federation of data spaces.

Finally, although the project to implement the future Common European Agricultural Data Space (CEADS) will not start until 2025, the results of the preparatory AgriDataSpace project (in which the University of Lleida participated) already outline its future governance model based on a Network Administrative Organization (NAO). During 2025, the evolution of the CEADS implementation project will be monitored to explore options to integrate RegenAg-x into its NAO.

Fig. 1. Members of the Pontus-X ecosystem and its governance structure (source: deltaDAO AG)

RegenAg-x Governance​

Aligned with the Global Governance inherited from the ecosystems of which RegenAg-x will be a part (Pontus-X, Gaia-X and the future CEADS), governance will also be carried out at the demonstrator level. The roles within RegenAg-x Governance will be:

  • Ecosystem promoter: the University of Lleida would be responsible, at least initially, for its governance and for defining and executing the onboarding and offboarding processes, as well as its oversight.
  • Technology provider: the Pontus-X provider, presumably deltaDAO AG.
  • Intermediation service providers: deltaDAO AG and Arsys.
  • Data space operator: University of Lleida but also those entities that operate the compute-to-data intermediation service. Initially Arsys, but open to any operator with computing resources who wants to commercialize through the data space.
  • Providers and consumers: those participants who have signed the letter of support as indicated above.

It is also important to identify the actors indirectly involved in that governance as they constitute the development communities of the components used by RegenAg-x and the data spaces with which it would interoperate. Specifically, the development communities of Gaia-X, Eclipse, Pontus-X and Ocean Protocol, all open source. And finally, the providers of global interoperability and trust services, mainly the different providers of the GXDCH.

Regarding the organizational model of the demonstrator, it will be organized following the network model. Collaboration among all participants will be based on consensus, reciprocity and the pursuit of collective goals and benefits. But the governance of a data space is not something static, unchanging over time, but should be understood as continuously evolving.

Within this model, considering how its governance is managed, we will start by following leadership governance, where the promoter will act as the central coordinator. Throughout the demonstrator project phase, it will evolve towards shared governance, where the relevance of each decision will depend on the level of involvement of participants. Reaching the end of the demonstrator phase, and with a view to the future sustainability of the data space, a decision will be made jointly on the future governance through a Network Administrative Organization (NAO), a neutral coordination body.

As mentioned, RegenAg-x will begin its journey following a leadership governance model, exercised by the demonstrator's promoter at least during the funded demonstrator phase. That model is detailed in the following section.

Leadership Governance Model​

RegenAg-x's initial governance model, based on leadership by the promoter of the demonstrator, addresses the aspects detailed in the following subsections.

Organizational interoperability​

Participants and roles of the data space​

  • Role of intermediary service provider: compute-to-data or GXDCH. Open to any provider that meets the demonstrator's requirements regarding these components and guarantees of independence, especially within the framework of the DGA.
  • Openness to new participants: open to any economic agent in the agri-food sector. Admission rules based on technological criteria described in interoperability standards. Also based on complementarity with the use cases deployed in the demonstrator, or the potential to deploy new use cases relevant to the Spanish agri-food sector.

Business models​

  • Business autonomy of providers and consumers who, within the options allowed by the implementation of smart contracts, have full business autonomy regarding the conditions of use and their acceptance.

Interrelation with other data spaces​

  • Operation of the demonstrator within the decentralized network of the Pontus-X ecosystem. Demonstrator users can interrelate with other data spaces in the ecosystem, including cross-sectoral relationships.

Semantic interoperability​

Description of service offerings​

  • Variety of representable resources, since it is possible to describe different resources (data, applications for data exploitation, and computational resources).
  • Flexibility in the description of services, within the Gaia-X Trust Framework and the vocabularies it defines for the description of data and processing services.
  • Definition of resources of the offerings using recognized standards, also in the context of the Gaia-X Trust Framework.

Data sovereignty​

  • Definition of policies for use and access to resources: the data space will initially have the information model of the existing smart contracts within the Pontus-X framework to define policies for access to and use of resources. During the project, options will be explored to integrate them with the access policy languages being established within the Gaia-X framework.

Formats​

  • Open W3C standards formats for Verifiable Credentials (VC) for modeling information about participants and the data and services they share.

Conformity​

  • Use of the Gaia-X Digital Clearing House (GXDC) as a conformity service that will guarantee the validity of the formal composition and the content of the credentials for participants and for the descriptions of the data and services they share.

Technological interoperability​

Data space architecture​

  • Architecture based on the digital federation of data and integrated into the network of data federations provided by the open source specifications and components of the Pontus-X ecosystem and the Gaia-X initiative.

Solution components​

  • Reuse of proven components from the Pontus-X and Gaia-X ecosystem, ensuring interoperability, data sovereignty and traceability.