Semantics for Compliance-by-Design: From Regulation to Data Space Implementation

As regulatory frameworks such as the AI Act, GDPR, and Data Act shape Europe’s digital future, there is an urgent need for technical approaches that embed compliance, ethics, and trustworthiness into the very design of data and AI systems. A promising enabler is the use of ontologies, semantic models, and formal methods to represent, reason about, and enforce regulatory requirements.

In this session, the DICE Alliance—comprising four Horizon Europe projects funded under the DATA-01-01 topic (DataPACT, ACCOMPLISH, ACHILLES, CERTAIN)—showcases how semantic compliance methods can help operationalise European values and regulations across diverse sectors.

After short opening statements from each project, the session will feature a moderated discussion on how semantic technologies support:

• ethical and transparent AI/data operations,
• automation of compliance tasks,
• cross-sectoral interoperability,
• and implementation of governance and trust mechanisms in European data spaces.

The discussion will highlight shared challenges and emerging best practices across projects and sectors, aiming to advance a common European approach to compliance-by-design—scalable, explainable, and built into the core of data ecosystems.

Presentations

Semantics & Compliance: Enabling Trustworthy Data/AI in European Data Spaces – General Slides