A research roadmap to advance data collaboratives practice as a novel research direction

An increasing number of initiatives have emerged around the world to help facilitate data sharing and collaborations to leverage different sources of data to address societal problems. They are called “data collaboratives”. Data collaboratives are seen as a novel way to match real life problems with relevant expertise and data from across the sectors. Despite its significance and growing experimentation by practitioners, there has been limited research in this field. In this article, the authors report on the outcomes of a panel discussing critical issues facing data collaboratives and develop a research and development agenda. The panel included participants from the government, academics, and practitioners and was held in June 2017 during the 18 ^th International Conference on Digital Government Research at City University of New York (Staten Island, New York, USA). The article begins by discussing the concept of data collaboratives. Then the authors formulate research questions and topics for the research roadmap based on the panel discussions. The research roadmap poses questions across nine different topics: conceptualizing data collaboratives, value of data, matching data to problems, impact analysis, incentives, capabilities, governance, data management, and interoperability. Finally, the authors discuss how digital government research can contribute to answering some of the identified research questions.