Today we welcome seven new projects onto our data access stimulus fund as part of our Innovate UK funded R&D programme. The projects and initiatives explore approaches that enable trustworthy and ethical sharing of data to help citizens and businesses lower their impact on the environment, improve public services and save lives.
The winners of the stimulus fund are:
- Open Climate Fix
- Open Climate Fix a non-profit research lab that plans to make it far easier for the energy system to share data – solar generation data in the first instance – data that should make the electricity grid more efficient, renewable energy more attractive to investors, and reduce the cost of energy to bill payers.
- Open Data Manchester
- Open Data Manchester works with 100s of small-scale energy and eco-efficiency operatives, like Carbon Co-op, to help their members share data - such as the power usage of smart meters, home energy performance assessments and electrical appliance and vehicle data - to help citizens and businesses to lower their environmental impact and deliver better services.
- Your Dsposal
- Your Dsposal uses tech to improve transparency and accountability in the waste sector. Information on waste services is often hard to find leaving UK citizens confused about what they can and can’t recycle. Your Dsposal will collect, standardise and share data to inform the public, improve recycling rates and reduce waste crime, like fly-tipping, which costs the UK economy an estimated £1bn a year.
- DNV GL
- DNV GL aims to help the UK achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, by using data sharing to support decarbonisation for clean growth. As a trusted, independent expert, it aims to assist the energy sector by defining potential business models to enable a shift in attitude and behaviour towards data.”
- ODI Leeds
- #OpenDataSavesLives is a project to stimulate innovation with data in the Health and Social care sector. This support will help ODI Leeds amplify it’s work to benefit the UK Health and Social Care sector as it responds to the Global Covid19 pandemic, creating reliable data infrastructure and using the power of the web to make a massive difference.
- Etic Lab
- Etic Lab is developing collaborative frameworks to help groups of legal advice charities access the strategic insights contained in their data without obliging them to expose sensitive or proprietary information, enhancing the charities’ goal of providing access to the UK justice system for those without the means to afford a solicitor.
- Collections Trust
- Collections Trust aims to build consensus on how all 1,700 UK museums might sustainably share their collections data with each other and with users ranging from school children to academic researchers.
In addition to funding, we will support and help to grow these projects by working in collaboration with them, and providing expert guidance and assistance until March 2021. These projects will be supporting the R&D team at the ODI to explore and deepen research in these two key areas:
- What revenue models, funding sources and cost structures can be adopted by data institutions to become sustainable?
- What data infrastructure, including data assets, standards, stakeholders and technology must be created or strengthened in order to be successful at meeting a social, environmental or economic challenge?
This Stimulus Fund is part of the ODI’s research and development programme – which includes a project to support data institutions in becoming sustainable and a project to create guidance and tools to help sectors build data infrastructure and address common challenges – and a broader programme of work on data institutions. A data institution is an organisation whose purpose involves stewarding data on behalf of others, often towards public, educational or charitable aims.
Leigh Dodds, Director of Delivery at the ODI said:
“These seven projects show the potential that sharing data has to solve challenges in the energy and health sectors in the UK and globally. It’s great to see people coming together to solve challenges that affect us all, like the cooperative using smart meter data to help individuals make better decisions on their climate impact.
“At the ODI, we want to help these projects succeed. Our experience of ethical data sharing and improving data infrastructure, like supporting and growing data institutions and data access initiatives, will help these projects become sustainable for the benefit of all. We look forward to working with the projects to also learn from them and help to develop tools and guidance that will support the development of other impactful initiatives.”
If you are interested in any of the work or research the ODI is doing into data institutions and data access initiatives please get in touch with a member of the team.
You can read our seven case studies and blog on the outcomes of the R&D data access stimulus fund – data sharing to lower environmental impact, improve public services and save lives - here.