Abstract
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) could greatly facilitate the exchange of data and functionalities between software applications in a flexible, controlled and secure way, especially on the web. Private companies, from startups to enterprises, have been using APIs for several years now, but it is only recently that APIs have seen increased interest in the public sector. API adoption in the public sector faces organisational, technical, legal and economic obstacles, and to overcome these barriers, proposed methods from the private sector and early adopters in the public sector provide a way forward. The available documentation is often sparse, difficult to find and to reuse for new contexts. No past efforts to collect and analyse these resources have been made. To address this shortcoming, this paper describes a landscape analysis in four areas: the main European Commission policy instruments on the adoption of APIs, the available web API standards, a set of European government API strategies and cases, and a list of government proposed methods distilled from more than 3900 documents. Our results reveal that European policy legislation and associated instruments promote, and in some cases mandate, the use of APIs, and that governments’ API strategies in the European Union are rather young but also that there are well known web APIs standards and proposed methods ready to support the digital transformation of governments through rapid, harmonised and successful adoption of APIs.
Highlights
Based on the need to gather and analyse the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) landscape for government in Europe, this study focused on the European policy context and main policy instruments, API
Several European strategy documents highlight the importance of the creation of European data spaces and its proper governance, namely, the communication about Shaping EU’s digital future [40], the European Data Strategy [41], the European Industry Strategy [42] and the White paper on the uptake of Artificial
We have identified a number of APIs that are not linked to any country but have been published by the European Union (42 cases) or by international communities active within the European Union or European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries’ boundaries (15 cases)
Summary
API adoption in the public sector faces organisational, technical, legal and economic obstacles, and to overcome these barriers, proposed methods from the private sector and early adopters in the public sector provide a way forward. No past efforts to collect and analyse these resources have been made To address this shortcoming, this paper describes a landscape analysis in four areas: the main European. Commission policy instruments on the adoption of APIs, the available web API standards, a set of European government API strategies and cases, and a list of government proposed methods distilled from more than 3900 documents. API strategies in the European Union are rather young and that there are well known web APIs standards and proposed methods ready to support the digital transformation of governments through rapid, harmonised and successful adoption of APIs
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