As part of our mission to build an open, trustworthy data ecosystem, where people can make better decisions using data and manage harmful impacts, the Open Data Institute (ODI) is excited to welcome a new group of ODI Research Fellows. This year’s cohort will examine questions related to the economic, financial and societal value of data, bringing together six researchers from across industry, academia and the third sector. The cohort includes a range of different perspectives and areas of expertise which should enable them to build off of and compliment each other's work.

As we’ve argued in our Value of Data report with the Bennett Institute and our recently published report, Understanding the Social and Economic Value of Sharing Data, the value of data is a complex, multifaceted concept. In our recent work, we developed a prototype Value of Data Canvas designed to help groups of organisations navigate this complex topic by structuring and documenting discussions about the value the data they hold can yield to them and society. As the technology landscape around data is rapidly changing, the goal of this cohort is to advance the ODI’s thinking around new, specialised approaches to creating and ensuring value in discrete scenarios which focus on a particular sector, data product/service or data value chain. The Fellows will contribute to this goal in a range of areas, including:

  • The role of social and economic incentives in encouraging individuals and organisations to share data and ways of lowering barriers to sharing.
  • The techno-organisational structures necessary for generating value from data
  • Different approaches to estimating the economic, social or environmental value of data, both in general and in specific contexts such as health, banking and education.

You can learn more about each of the Fellows in the drop-down menu below.

Larriza is an independent researcher, lecturer, and knowledge management MBA coordinator at the Reference Centre for Business Intelligence (CRIE), a lab for entrepreneurship and innovation affiliated with the Engineering Programme of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in Brazil.

She holds a master’s degree in communication from the State University of Rio de Janeiro and a PhD in information science from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Her dissertation focused on the effects of social networks’ affordances and media materialities on knowledge sharing, and her post-doctoral research focused on the use of open data from the Brazilian Open Data Platform in scientific research.

You can read more about her project on her profile page

Georgia is a Health Scientist and Epidemiologist working across academia, publishing, and industry. She completed a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil/PhD) in Epidemiology at the University of Oxford that used open data to assess the use of strong pain medicines called opioids.

Georgia is the Medical Teaching and Development Lead in the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine coordinating and teaching Oxford University Medical students, supervising research projects, MSc and DPhil theses, and is an Associate Editor for BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.

You can read more about her project on her profile page

Lewis’ main background lies in strategic and risk management; researching how companies use and combine their resources to create value, identify opportunities for future value and mitigate threats to existing value. Working with the ODI as part of his fellowship extends these existing interests by examining how firms use their data resources for value creation and what other resources must be deployed and mixed with data in order to so.

You can read more about his project on his profile page

Linda has qualifications in anthropology, digital social science and a public policy background, having spent four years serving in the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. She currently works as an applied anthropologist at a boutique global strategy consulting firm, working primarily within our technology & society practice. She has worked on and led a multitude of strategy and research projects for a range of big tech firms, conducting ethnographic deep-dives into user needs and product context.

You can read more about her project on her profile page

Blanka Wawrzyniak is a lawyer and a researcher with international experience gained through traineeships in the European Commission (Brussels), the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Poland to the European Union (Brussels), Allen & Overy (Warsaw).

At the ODI she will be conducting research focused on the value of healthcare data and incentives for patients to share their data for secondary use. Her study will aim to identify the best-suited model for medical data sharing, estimate how people subjectively value their health data, and to what extent they are aware of the potential benefits of data re-use.

You can read more about her project on her profile page

Stephanie Griffiths is an expert in change management and the everyday application of AI. She is fascinated by data & its many creative uses, as well as supporting more teen girls to get into tech.

As a Field - Chief Data Officer at Dataiku, she is focused on driving business value and digital transformation through the application of AI. Stephanie is also an ambassador for the Women in Data Science conference, an event dedicated to inspiring and educating professionals and supporting women.

You can read more about her project on her profile page

The fellowships are part of our overall mission to help build an open, trustworthy data ecosystem, where people can make better decisions using data and manage any harmful impacts. This is a global challenge we can only address with strong partnerships with a range of stakeholders, including researchers, developers and practitioners worldwide. We are looking forward to supporting and promoting the fellowships and identifying ways to continue to collaborate with people and organisations to advance research and innovation around the value of data and beyond.

If you would like to support this cohort and/or the ODI Fellowship programme as a whole, please get in touch by emailing [email protected].

Over the next year, each ODI Fellow will be communicating about their research with updates on their investigations into the economic, financial and societal value of data.