Data spaces do not grow in a vacuum. They grow inside industries, shaped by the regulations, business models, and legacy systems that already define those industries. A healthcare data space and a mobility data space face some of the same technical questions, but the people who can actually move either one forward are the ones who understand healthcare or mobility from the inside. That is the gap DSSC's sector orchestrators are asked to close.
Sector orchestrators are recognised European experts, each embedded in the sector they represent. . Acatech, our Mobility orchestrator, initiated and coordinated the conceptual development of the Mobility Data Space from a 2019 resolution by the German Federal Government. Europeana coordinates the Common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage. LNDS is already central to the European Health Data Space, TEHDAS2, and the Genomic Data Infrastructure. Each orchestrator brings that kind of standing into their role, which is what earns them peer recognition and acceptance in their community rather than having to build it from scratch.
Orchestrators are hosted within the project's support work, but they serve the full project. Alongside Value Coaches and Data Space Specialists, they form the team DSSC deploys to support Common European Data Spaces (CEDS), whether that support means pointing someone to the right guidance on the knowledge platform or running a dedicated support project to test a business model.
One orchestrator for each industrial sector
The European Commission classifies the Common European Data Spaces it recognises into 14 industrial sectors: Mobility, Language, Media, Research, Energy, Cultural Heritage, Skills, Green Deal, Tourism, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Public Procurement, and Smart Cities. DSSC has an orchestrator for each one, drawn from across the consortium: Acatech for Mobility, DFKI for Language, EBU for Media, EGI for Research, Engineering for Energy, Europeana for Cultural Heritage, IDC for Green Deal, IDSA for Tourism, ILVO for Agriculture, Innovalia for Manufacturing, LNDS for Healthcare, NTT Data for Public Procurement, and TalTech for Smart Cities.
Most sectors are not home to a single data space but several. Manufacturing alone already counts three live CEDS. That is precisely why the role exists: a single point of contact who understands the whole sectoral landscape, not just one initiative within it, and who can represent DSSC credibly to all of them.
Bi-directional support
The orchestrator role is not a one-way broadcast of guidance into a sector. It runs in both directions.
Going outward, orchestrators make sure their sector understands and can actually use what DSSC produces: the Blueprint, the Glossary, the Toolbox, and the rest of the guidance assets the project maintains. Going inward, they gather what their sector is running into: recurring technical blockers, business model questions, legal uncertainty, the details that only surface when you are close to the ground. That field knowledge feeds directly into DSSC's own work, shaping how the Blueprint and Glossary evolve, informing the project's data space observatory and roadmap, and helping identify which CEDS might be ready for a support sprint through the ecosystem accelerator.
This is also where the project's Industry Dialogues with the European Commission and its Community Touchpoints originate: structured moments where sector-level insight gets surfaced and shared, rather than staying locked inside individual orchestrator relationships.
DSSC's first phase did not offer sector orchestration at this scale. Building it out properly, with a named, credible expert for each of the 14 sectors, is part of what marks the shift from establishing guidance to making sure that guidance lands where it is needed and gets better because of it.