A Collaborative Governance Approach to Partnerships Addressing Public Problems with Private Data

Abstract

The recent explosion of data, which is generated, collected, and exchanged, opens up new opportunities and poses new challenges. Actors in different sectors have recently began to explore how they can work together and leverage these data to help address ‘wicked’ problems. A novel form of cross sector partnership emerges, labelled “data collaborative”, which is normally focused on accessing private sector data and using it to address public problems. While there is emerging knowledge about how data can be shared in such partnerships, less is known about the collaboration dynamics of these partnerships. Are there any distinct collaboration mechanisms and challenges that come into play? In this paper, we examine this problem from the perspective of collaborative governance and propose a framework for understanding collaboration around data sharing for public good.