The CERTAIN project participated in the TESSERA Final Event on June 26th, 2026, in Athens, Greece. TESSERA is a project focusing on civil security for society and is part of Horizon Europe Cluster 3. While it belongs to a different cluster from CERTAIN, there were many overlaps between the two projects, most notably their shared focus on the development of compliant, trustworthy European data spaces.
As the TESSERA project presented its final outcomes and lessons learned, representatives from CERTAIN were present to observe these results and share outcomes from our own project, particularly in relation to data governance, regulatory compliance, and the practical implementation of compliance-by-design approaches.
Parul Chaudhary and Martin Hayford delivered an overview of the CERTAIN project and an in-depth look at the development of guidelines for data holders looking to enter AI data markets. Martin also participated in a panel discussion on the topic of “Navigating Dataset Quality and Regulatory Compliance.” Members of the panel broadly agreed on the main compliance challenges organisations face in relation to EU regulation in the AI and data spheres. There was a diversity of opinion regarding the best ways for organisations to approach these challenges, but the main emergent themes included investing in high-quality compliance personnel and processes, and entering data sharing arrangements with greater confidence. Discussions on the Digital Omnibus also featured, with the conclusion that streamlining regulation is a step in the right direction, provided that implementation is decisive, smart, and does not undermine EU values such as respect for human rights and privacy.
Giorgos Pitsiladis also presented on behalf of the CERTAIN project on the topic of “Regulation-Aware Data Spaces: The RegOps Approach.” The presentation introduced the CERTAIN Data Space implementation and explained how regulatory compliance can be embedded directly into data space infrastructures through configurable RegOps workflows. Particular attention was given to the translation of legal requirements, including those stemming from the GDPR, Data Act, AI Act and Data Governance Act, into technical building blocks such as data anonymisation, minimisation, access control, logging and bias mitigation. The presentation also highlighted the technical implementation of the RegOps approach, including the RegOps Workflow Editor and Engine, which materialise the configuration and execution of RegOps workflows. There was strong interest among the audience regarding the technical aspects of the CERTAIN Data Space, especially its exploitation potential in the security sector and possible use beyond the lifecycle of the project. Given the overlap with TESSERA on trusted and compliant data spaces, it was useful to compare and contrast approaches and explore how different application domains can lead to different design outcomes.
It was a highly useful experience to see a similar project presented in its final stage, and it allowed for the formation of strong connections between TESSERA and CERTAIN partners. Additionally, TESSERA included sister project presentations in its final event, leading to an even wider network of projects CERTAIN can interface with as we enter new phases of our project. Overall, CERTAIN’s participation helped reinforce its positioning within the European data and AI ecosystem, particularly in relation to trustworthy, interoperable and regulation-aware data spaces.
