In June, OPTED's Work Package 5 invited academic practitioners, data journalists and data owners of parliamentary texts to the befitting surroundings of the European Parliament in Brussels. The overarching goal was to enable a dialogue on how ‘access to’ and ‘research with’ parliamentary data can strengthen democracies in Europe.

The discussions have now been collected in a report by Rebeka Kiss and Miklós Sebők in the International Journal of Parliamentary Studies, available through Open Access. The article provides a brief outline of all the guest speakers and their contributions and perspectives on the potentials of using these resources. The roundtable discussions featured input from discussants and attendees, sharing common goals yet also hindrances in their current work. 

Work on recommendations and learnings from the event continues and will feed into future OPTED publications and dissemination activities.