Faculty of Economics
Interoperability is the ability of computer systems and software to exchange and make use of information. In the EU cross-border interoperability is at the center of the Digital Single Market strategy.
Ensuring seamless cross-border data exchange is not a trivial task as policy makers should factor in various IT aspects to comply with the technical requirements. The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) lays out 12 underlying principles and a set of recommendations to develop a robust public services ecosystem by removing legal, organizational, semantic and technical barriers. The principles set out in the EIF are as follows: subsidiarity and proportionality, openness, transparency, reusability, technological neutrality and data portability, user-centricity, inclusion and accessibility, security and privacy, multilingualism, administrative simplification, preservation of information, assessment of effectiveness and efficiency.
The Interoperable Europe Act, that entered into force in 2024, aims to enhance trans-European interoperability and cooperation in the public sector by providing a cohesive framework for the development of digital public services across the entire EU.
In 2025 interoperability assessments became mandatory as data is often exchanged between different public administrations at the local, regional, national and European levels. For example, the European Disability and Parking Card grants cardholders equal access to preferential treatment anywhere in the EU. In order for the card to be verified and validated, each Member State should follow the same standardized format.
Another example of advanced interoperability is the National Information Exchange Model, frequently referred to as NIEM. NIEM is a data model that was designed to facilitate cross-domain data exchange between various government agencies.
Launched in 2005 as a collaborative effort by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, it was originally based on the Global Justice XML Data Model. NIEM is now an official OASIS standard used across all 50 U.S. states and internationally – in both public and private sectors.
NIEM aims to foster semantic consistency and structural integrity by providing a common vocabulary, i.e. a specified set of information components that can be organized into information exchange packages. To simplify machine-to-machine communication all data and metadata elements must follow standardized rules and mandatory conventions defined in the NIEM NDR. The NIEM naming and design rules are based on international standards like ISO/IEC 11179 and cover syntax rules, semantics and formatting conventions. They promote uniform data representation and semantic clarity by providing formal specifications for structuring data models, namespaces, schemas and messages to guarantee NIEM conformance and make it easier to align distributed systems with the common vocabulary.
Information exchanged between domains is divided into individual components – such as people, places, vehicles and events – that can be reused across all NIEM domains regardless of the operational context.
The NIEM Model v.6.0 introduced an advanced format-agnostic framework featuring the robust CMF Tool command-line utility that supports XML, JSON and RDF and ensures readability and interoperable data exchange across diverse organizations and systems.
Currently the NIEM model incorporates 18 mission-critical domains including Emergency Management, Infrastructure Protection, Immigration, International Trade, Intelligence, Military Operations, Biometrics, Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear.
Russian Federation, 119991, Moscow, GSP-1, Leninskie Gory,
Lomonosov Moscow State University,
Building 1, Building 46 (New Academic Building 3), Faculty of Economics, rooms 546, 548, 550
Department of Economic Informatics
Our website is at econ.msu.ru
+7 (495) 939-30-67 — Secretary
+7 (495) 939-57-25 — Faculty Office
Email: ecinf.econ@org.msu.ru