Who is this playbook for?
This playbook is primarily aimed at organisations involved in – and especially leading – data access initiatives that are planning to build or strengthen data infrastructure. Your organisation can use this playbook when considering designing and delivering a new collaborative programme of work which focuses on collecting, using or sharing data with the aim of addressing a common challenge.
How to use this playbook
If you are a new organisation or early on in your initiative you may want to start with Play one: Explore the problem and how data can address it and proceed sequentially. You do not need to complete each activity before starting the next, but activities such as literature reviews and interviews can make creating stakeholder maps and data inventories much easier.
If you are experienced or have an in-flight data project, you may want to just use specific plays such as Play two: Map the data ecosystem or Play four: Assess the existing data infrastructure.
If your initiative has already built data infrastructure to tackle a problem but wants to implement it in another context, we suggest reviewing plays such as Play two: Map the data ecosystem and Play three: Assess the policy, regulatory and ethical context to describe the data ecosystem and assess the policy and regulatory landscape and considerations. If there are any major changes needed to adapt the data infrastructure in that context or sector, we recommend looking at plays such as Play five: Plan for impact when designing your initiative and Play four: Assess the existing data infrastructure to define the activities and outputs needed and reflect on the data infrastructure that might support the initiative.
If you are new to the term ‘data infrastructure’, we recommend you read the next section which explores the concepts of data infrastructure and data access initiatives.
If you are comfortable with the terminology, we recommend that you jump straight into the most relevant play, however the information is there for reference if you need it.
Data infrastructure for data access initiatives
In order to be able to collect, access, use and share data to tackle complex challenges in a way that creates value and minimises harmful impacts, we need to build strong data infrastructure. Data infrastructure consists of:
Data assets (such as datasets, identifiers and registers)
Standards and technologies used to curate and provide access to data assets
Guidance and policies that inform the use and management of data assets and the data infrastructure
Organisations that govern the data infrastructure
Communities involved in contributing to or maintaining data infrastructure, and those who are impacted by decisions that are made using it
What is a data access initiative?
As part of our work exploring data infrastructure for common challenges, we have been using the term ‘data access initiatives’. We define a data access initiative as a collaborative programme that focuses on collecting, using and sharing data to address a social, environmental or economic challenge.
To differentiate these from other projects and initiatives, we characterise data access initiatives as initiatives or programmes that:
Have a clear challenge, in the form of a specific social, environmental or economic problem that is the focus for the collaboration
Involve multiple stakeholders that are actively working together to solve the problem
Include a strong focus on collecting, using and sharing data as part of their work
This playbook is specifically written for individuals and organisations leading data access initiatives that are focused on building data infrastructure. If you are running an initiative that is focused mainly on improving capability, enabling innovation or improving trust and trustworthiness, you may find the plays less useful. If your data access initiative is focused on ‘challenge prizes’ and how to design and deliver them, we recommend reading the Nesta publication ‘Challenge Prizes: a Practice Guide’. If you are designing a challenge prize to help drive innovative uses of data in health, we recommend reading our resource ‘Data Challenge Prizes for Health: a Playbook’.
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