Conceptualizing a national data infrastructure for Switzerland

A national data infrastructure (NDI) provides data, data-related services and guidelines for the re-use of data as an easily accessible service to citizens as well as to public and private organizations. As such, it allows the efficient sharing of data between data providers and data consumers, supports new business models, and is thus a key enabler for the digital economy, societal collaboration and political processes. Several European countries have already taken steps in the direction of setting up such data infrastructures that reach across institutional silos. The approaches taken vary across the countries. In Switzerland, activities in this direction are at an early, conceptual stage. In this paper we present the findings of a preliminary study undertaken in order to identify key stakeholders, to foster a shared vision of what an NDI is about, to identify the major governance issues related to its inception and sustainable exploitation, and to sketch out a tentative roadmap in view of the establishment of a NDI in Switzerland. We carried out a series of stakeholder interviews with representatives of public administration, research, civil society, and the private sector, covering topics such as the collaboration across the data value-chain, the conceptualization of a NDI, as well as the governance issues and collective action problems that need to be resolved, such as the identification of key stakeholders and their expected contributions during the build-up phase.