Bringing data to life: Interactive data stories

Understand high-value datasets through engaging narratives

Why do floods hit some regions harder than others? Who has the time to rest—and who doesn’t?

From the risks of natural disasters to the hidden inequalities in how people spend their days, data can help us tell powerful stories about the world we live in. But complex datasets alone don’t always make for easy reading.

To make these complex datasets more understandable and accessible, we have created a growing series of visual, interactive narratives that brings high-value datasets to life as interactive data stories. These stories combine text, visuals, and interactive elements to create engaging narratives. Using data-driven stories offers a distinct advantage by drawing attention to high-value datasets and demonstrating their practical use.

The stories guide you step-by-step through the datasets used, accompanied by a visualisation note. This note is an article that introduces readers to the language of data visualisation, which is effective in highlighting patterns, trends, and demonstrating how the data is utilised. Moreover, the interactive elements provide a more engaging experience for a broad audience.

The first two published interactive data stories, ‘What Water Can Take from Us’ and ‘Everyone’s Busy – But not Equally’, exemplify the impact of open data. ‘What Water Can Take from Us’ uses different datasets related to flooding risk to build a story that informs public debate on how to address this issue, with Spain as an example. ‘Everyone’s Busy – But not Equally’ combines various datasets related to income-inequality and activity groups to explore how time use varies at the country level, highlighting inequalities. Both stories demonstrate how open data can be transformed into valuable insights and practical utilities. By making these complex datasets more understandable and accessible to a broad audience, the EU promotes the importance of transparency, collaboration and engagement.

Are you interested in using high-value datasets or seeking more context about them? Engage with the interactive data stories, dive-deep into more complex high-value datasets on data.europa.eu, and discover their impact!

For more news and events, follow us on X/Twitter and LinkedIn, or subscribe to our newsletter. You can also connect with other users through our collaboration channel.