Bachelor's or Master's Thesis: Decentralized Dataspace Governance Authority

07.02.2025, Abschlussarbeiten, Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten

Thesis at the Chair for Information Infrastructures (Prof. Dr. Ali Sunyaev)

Motivation

Data is a cornerstone of innovation and economic growth in the modern world. Organizations across industries increasingly rely on data, using it to understand consumer behavior and tailor products in business, or to support diagnosis and treatment plans in healthcare. However, many individual organizations lack sufficient data on their own to drive meaningful insights. Furthermore, the use of data is frequently constrained by privacy regulations and trade secret protections, making secure and seamless sharing across entities challenging. To address this, dataspaces have emerged. A dataspace is a data ecosystem that enables organizations or individuals to securely share, access, and collaborate on data while ensuring compliance with legal and competitive boundaries. By fostering trusted and interoperable data exchanges, dataspaces are essential for building data-driven ecosystems. Despite their potential, centralized dataspaces pose risks, such as power concentration, security vulnerabilities, and limited participation due to a lack of transparency. A decentralized approach mitigates these risks by distributing control, eliminating single points of failure, and enhancing transparency. However, decentralized dataspaces require effective governance mechanisms for participant registration, issuing verified credentials, and maintaining a directory of registered members. Several decentralized dataspace specifications have been proposed, including Gaia-X, Social Linked Data (SOLiD), and International Data Spaces (IDS). These are respectively implemented in the following frameworks: Gaia-X in Gaia-X Föderationsdienste (GXFS), IDS in Eclipse Dataspace Components (EDC), and SOLiD in Community Solid Server (CSS). Each specification targets specific business needs, such as security, interoperability, and scalability. However, research exploring how these specifications address business requirements is limited. This gap creates challenges for organizations trying to select and implement the right decentralized dataspace solution, potentially leading to poor choices or costly misalignments with business goals. This thesis seeks to identify the key business requirements for decentralized dataspaces and evaluate how existing specifications meet these needs. The central research question is: How do different decentralized dataspace specifications address business requirements? The main goal of this study is to help organizations adopt and implement decentralized dataspaces more effectively, ensuring alignment with their specific needs and increasing the benefits of data collaboration.

Methods

This research will employ a three-step research approach. In the first step, a focus group will be conducted with industry partners, comprising business representatives and technical experts, to identify the primary requirements for decentralized dataspaces. The outcome will be a requirement specification detailing these needs, that outlines the critical business needs and technical considerations identified through group discussions. The second step involves a comprehensive review of existing decentralized dataspace specifications, such as Eclipse Dataspace Components (EDC), SOLID, and International Data Spaces (IDS). This review will compare their technical features, implementation differences, and how they fulfill the previously identified requirements. The resulting artifact will be a classification of specifications and business requirements. In the third step, a second focus group will refine the findings from the previous steps and develop guidelines for designing and implementing decentralized dataspaces. These guidelines will help businesses select and develop appropriate governance structures.

Targeted Results

The goal of this thesis is to offer an overview of business requirements and various approaches that enable the fulfillment of these requirements in decentralized dataspaces. It will include a classification of existing specifications and their approaches. Additionally, a catalog of guidelines for establishing Governance Authorities in decentralized dataspaces will be developed, offering practical recommendations for effective governance structures.

Contact

If interested, please send your transcripts and a short motivation why you think you are suitable for and interested in the topic.

Kontakt: kevin.armbruster@tum.de, sascha.rank@tum.de, niclas.kannengiesser@tum.de