The Open Data Value Chain

Is open data really worth something? And if so, who creates that value and are they actually compensated for it? This is an important question, because actors in complex systems gravitate towards their incentives. If publishing open data is a chore that has to be done to fulfil regulatory requirements, it will be done with minimal effort and in terrible quality ¹. In contrast, if open data publishers actually can profit from some of the value their data creates directly (what economists call “value capture”), they have a much higher motivation to publish high quality data and to invest in the infrastructure that makes publishing further open data easy ².

In a recent series of papers and workshops The official portal for European data has explored potential business models for open data. Their summary paper has just been released (Pizzamiglio (2024) ³) and is worth a read. To me, the most interesting figure is the Open Data Value Chain, here reproduced without changes ⁴:

The categories of open data (raw data, refined data and “fit-for-purpose” (data) products) mirror the experience from our research that there is an intermediate type of data that is generically improved over raw data and usable for many projects but has to be adapted to the concrete use-case by the final consumer.

Actors are not only those primarily focused on open data but also those that use open data to improve their existing services or products, for example by combining private data with open data sources. Consuming open data is also not the only value-creating activity, publishing open data can also provide value by allowing other actors to create complimentary products.

In addition to open data publishers and consumers, Infomediaries ⁵ improve data quality or access to data.