This document discusses open data initiatives in Serbian government institutions. It provides definitions of open data and lists potential benefits such as increased transparency, new private sector products/services, and data-driven innovations. It also outlines some challenges to open data like technical and legal issues. Good practice examples of datasets from several Serbian agencies are described. The document concludes that Serbia is well-positioned to advance its open data efforts through its assessment and strategic plans.

1. Open Data in Serbian
Government Institutions
Milovan Šuvakov
Institute of Physics Belgrade www.ipb.ac.rs
Observatory of Social Innovations www.odi.rs

2. Why Open Data?
What is Open Data? Difference between #opendata & #foi
Definition: availability, access, reuse, redistribution, universal participation
Potential benefits:
Transparency and democratic control
Improved or new private products and services
Improved efficiency/effectiveness of government services
Impact measurement of policies
Data-driven innovations
New knowledge from data

3. Major Obstacles/Challenges
Technical: limited IT
capabilities, server
infrastructure, security,...
Legal: missing (overlapping)
jurisdictions
“Philosophical”: attitudes
toward data (sharing)

4. Open Data Readiness Assessment (ODRA)
UNDP, WB
eUprava
ODWG
New portal
Law change
2y project
http://www.rs.undp.org/content/serbia/en/home/library/democratic_governance/open-data-readiness-assesment-.html

5. Good Practice Examples
Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development (109 datasets)
http://opendata.mpn.gov.rs
Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data
Protection (13 datasets)
Environmental Protection Agency (10 datasets)
Public Procurement Office (5 datasets)
Ministry of Mining and Energy (5 datasets)
Medicines and Medical Devices Agency of Serbia (3 datasets)
Ministry of Interior (1 dataset)
Source: http://data.gov.rs

6. Ministry of Interior
1 dataset:
Belgrade road
accidents 2015: time,
position (gps), type,
description; 12873
rows
Formats: xls, csv

7. Medicines and Medical Devices Agency of Serbia
3 datasets: medicines market data, approved clinical studies
(200 rows), generic names of medicines
Formats: xls

8. Public Procurement Office
5 datasets
Formats: csv, zipped csv

9. Ministry of Mining and Energy
5 datasets
Formats: xml, json

10. Environmental Protection Agency
Portal: http://data.sepa.gov.rs/
(based on DKAN - open source platform.)

11. Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and
Personal Data Protection
http://www.data.poverenik.rs/ (CKAN based portal)

12. Ministry of Education, Science and Technological
Development
Portal: http://opendata.mpn.gov.rs/
71 datasets: all levels of education + R&D
Formats: csv, xls, json

13. Open Data in Serbian Laws
Low on R&D: data on researchers, projects and institutions
“...Podaci iz registara su otvoreni podaci, javno dostupni na
internet prezentaciji Ministarstva u mašinski obradivom
obliku za korišćenje i dalje objavljivanje.”
“...Data from the registry are open data, publicly available
on Ministry web page, in computer readable format, free for
reuse and redistribution.”

14. Available R&D Data
Institutions, projects, financial data:
http://opendata.mpn.gov.rs/get.php?dataset=nio&lang=sr&term=human
http://opendata.mpn.gov.rs/get.php?dataset=nio_finansije&lang=sr&term=human
http://opendata.mpn.gov.rs/get.php?dataset=nid_projekti&lang=sr&term=human
http://opendata.mpn.gov.rs/get.php?dataset=nid_projekti_finansije&lang=sr&term=human
5 year project reports:
http://izvestaji.mpn.gov.rs/izvestaji/
Missing: researchers, results in more details

15. Conclusions
Serbia is #48 out of 97 coutries in the 2014 Global Open
Data Index http://index.okfn.org/place/2014/
ODRA: Serbia is in a good position to move forward with an
Open Data Initiative
Strategy for the Development of e-Government and other
strategic documents announce improvements.
What can we do?