Connected by data

How should data stewards support collective and participatory data governance practice?

Tim Davies ▪ Mar 22, 2023

The GovLab and new non-profit The Datatank have launched a conversation about the job specification for a re-imagined data stewardship role. They argue that ‘Data Stewards’ are a much-needed role in both public and private organisations, operating to maximise re-use of data in the public interest, and are inviting feedback on a revised Data Steward job specification.

In this post I look at the feedback that a collective and participatory data governance frame might offer.

Dream, imagine, envision - exploring opportunities and engagement for an insight infrastructure programme

Tim Davies ▪ Mar 14, 2023

On Monday 6th March, participants from 12 organisations working on issues related to poverty gathered for a workshop in London to dream, imagine and envision potential directions for an ‘insight infrastructure’ to support action on poverty, social and economic inequality.

This was the second workshop in an appreciative inquiry series. The first‘Discovery’ session is documented here.

In this post, we summarise some of the key themes explored in the workshop, and document the ideas and suggestions made that will feed into the next workshop, which will focus on the design of stakeholder engagement, and governance proposals for insight infrastructure.

Discovering what works - thinking about effective insight infrastructures

Tim Davies ▪ Feb 23, 2023

This week we had the first of our workshop sessions to explore the potential ecosystem around, and stakeholder engagement in, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) plans to develop an Insight Infrastructure on poverty in the UK.

Below I’ve written up an initial synthesis of the session.

Observing the NHS AI Lab Public Dialogue on Data Stewardship

Tim Davies ▪ Feb 23, 2023

Over last three weeks at the end of July 2022 I was an observer of the NHS AI Lab Public Dialogue on data stewardship: a process involving around 50 members of the public meeting for 12 hours (across four sessions) to share their ‘thoughts, aspirations, hopes and concerns’ about how access to healthcare data for AI purposes should be managed. A report of the dialogue was published by the organisers (Open Data Institute, Imperial College Health Partners and Ipsos), and the NHS AI Lab (who co-funded the dialogue along with Sciencewise) intend to use the findings to inform the Terms of Reference for a research competition titled ‘Participatory Fund for Patient-Driven AI Ethics Research’.

This write-up contains my notes as an independent observer of the dialogue, and member of the project’s Stakeholder group.

Weeknotes are a combination of updates and personal reflection written on a routine basis