LAPSI – The European Thematic Network about the Legal Aspects of PSI

LAPSI (Legal Aspects of Public Sector Information) was a European Commission-funded project on PSI. The activities of the project formally started in the 1st quarter of 2010; the project lasted 30 months, ending in September 2012. In the closing phase, the network outputs (policy recommendations, conceptual frameworks and papers) were publicly discussed and its deliverables (mid-term and final reports) were submitted. The LAPSI final review meeting took place in November in Luxembourg.

Information generated and collected by public sector entities represents a veritable minefield and various studies suggest that it might make a much greater contribution to EU economies and societies, if current legal barriers to access and reuse were removed. In this context, the European Commission opened a call for proposals for a thematic network devoted to the policy support and consensus building activities, which could help removing such barriers.

As a part of an ICT policy support program, LAPSI directly contributes to the i2010 strategy of the European Commission by building a network of organizations representing the main European point of reference for legal issues related to PSI. To make PSI more accessible and re-usable and support the European PSI Directive review process, LAPSI aimed at producing a set of strategic guidelines and policy recommendations.

Several activities were scheduled in the LAPSI network: one kick-off and one final meeting, six thematic seminars; four internal conferences, two public conferences, two primers and two awards. The network held a final meeting (jointly organized with the EVPSI research project): the policy recommendations from the Network were publicly discussed in Turin, on July 9-10, 2012. Formally, the project ended in September 2012. The closing period was dedicated to refine and publish the outputs of the network: 8 policy recommendations; 3 position papers; 2 conceptual frameworks; 1 discussion paper and all the deliverables required by the European Commission (the material is now available at: http://www.lapsi-project.eu/materials). During the LAPSI final review meeting it was decided to spread the outputs as much as possible; therefore, the policy recommendation were published on the SSRN Network and will also be published on a special issue of the MULJIT journal.