Skip to content

The 2023/2024 Open Data Engagement Fund is open for applications

Tá leagan Gaeilge den mhír seo ar fáil anseo.

The Open Data Engagement Fund has been developed in conjunction with the Open Data Governance Board (ODGB).  This is a competitive fund designed to provide support towards promoting the use of open data on the national Open Data Portal data.gov.ie.

The closing date for applications will be the Wednesday 22nd November 2023 at 12pm noon. The total amount of funding available is €30,000 and the maximum available for any one project is €5,000.   Applications can be made by any organisation or individual. This includes any person, public body, business, research body, educational body, civil society group. 

Applications can be made for funding to support a variety of Open Data related activities.  These include;

  • the organisation of outreach and engagement activities, for example, seminars, competitions and hackathons;
  • the building of applications and development of visualisations to demonstrate the use that can be made of open data;
  • or specific research on open government datasets with a view to arriving at outcomes that help create efficiencies in the public service or assist in government decision making.  

Identifying the impact of open data and being able to facilitate its further use is a strategic goal of government open data, so particular consideration will be given to projects showing the impact or potential impact of the use of open data.

Applications should be in one of the following categories:

A. Outreach, advocacy and engagement activities with and by public bodies to promote the release and/or usage of Open Data, e.g. seminars, workshops, discussion groups, conferences, etc.;

B. Innovative use of data published through data.gov.ie, either used on its own or in combination with other data sources.  This category could include the building of apps, holding competitions or hackathons,or/and the development of interactive visualisations to demonstrate data usage from data.gov.ie;

C. Special Category Project: Support for a project or research piece using specific datasets with a view to arriving at outcomes that could:

  1. support the creation of efficiencies within Public Bodies; or
  2. assist in government decision making; or
  3. demonstrate trends in social topics to help address current issues in the public interest or interesting and tangible insights into public policy issues (such as housing, environment, transport, etc.).

D. Carry out a project or study to look at the benefits that Ireland’s Open Data Initiative has had to date.  This could include projects / studies to assess the economic benefits of open data at macro and or micro economic levels, or an exercise or study looking at specific government data that has not been released as open data and assessing the potential benefits and costs of its release.

E. Carry out a project or study to look at the impact that Ireland’s Open Data Initiative has had to date.  This could include, for example, projects / studies to assess the environmental, social, political or economic impact of open data in Ireland.

Apply online or the application form may be downloaded here.

Please email completed application forms to opendata@per.gov.ie.

The list of the successful applications for the 2022/2023 OD Engagement Fund can be seen here.