Towards a Reference Enterprise Architecture to enforce Digital Sovereignty in International Data Spaces

An International Data Space (IDS) aims to facilitate sovereign data sharing in business ecosystems. The GAIA-X project and the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) lead initial European efforts to create such information systems. These institutions' high-level business rules and architectural guidelines are essential to attract companies interested in joining the IDS vision. However, companies may interpret these guidelines differently and derive implementations that have interoperability issues. This paper addresses this issue by reconciling data sovereignty and Enterprise Interoperability requirements into a Reference Enterprise Architecture for IDS. It aims to help companies create instantiations or specializations of organizational and software components to meet specific business cases' needs whil e preserving essential IDS principles. Representatives of two Enterprise Integration software companies interested in exploring the IDS vision helped refine the architecture through Technical-Action Research. An expert panel of representatives from the Dutch Logistics sector evaluated the architecture regarding its potential acceptance by small and medium enterprises (SMEs).