European Commission — minimum €10.2B/yr cost of not having FAIR research data

The European Commission estimated the cost of not having FAIR research data at a minimum of €10.2 billion per year across the European Union (S-0114).

The figure is the inverse of the open-data multiplier: rather than measuring the return on open data, it measures the foregone value when research data is not Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. The two are coupled — the EU figure is approximately the value that would otherwise have been captured had FAIR practices been universal.

The €10.2B/yr is conservative. It captures only directly attributable inefficiency (duplicated effort, search costs, methodology drift) at the EU scale. The full open-access multiplier documented in cases like the HGP (E-0069), Landsat (E-0061), and COVID-19 (E-0062) is substantially larger because it captures upside rather than just avoided cost.

The case reinforces C-0032 from the lost-value angle: openness produces measurable economic returns; the absence of openness produces equally measurable losses.