Affiliations: Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Beat Estermann, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland. E-mail: beat.estermann@bfh.ch.
Abstract: A national data infrastructure (NDI) provides data, data-related services and guidelines for the re-use of data to individuals and organizations. It facilitates efficient sharing of data, supports new business models, and is thus a key enabler for the digital economy, open research, societal collaboration and political processes. While several European countries have taken steps to set up data infrastructures cutting across institutional silos, approaches vary, and there is no common understanding of what a NDI exactly comprises. In Switzerland, activities are still at a conceptual stage. In order to foster a shared vision of what a NDI is about, stakeholder interviews were carried out with representatives of public administration, research, civil society, and the private sector. There is broad consensus among key stakeholders that a NDI is to be conceived as a nationwide distributed technical infrastructure allowing the sharing of data, based on predefined rules. Our findings also suggest that the notion of a NDI should be approached from four perspectives: a big data, a base register, an open data, and a mydata perspective. For its implementation, effective coordination across several dimensions (ethical, legal, political, economical, organizational, semantical, and technical) is crucial, which calls for a truly multidisciplinary approach.
Keywords: National data infrastructure, big data, open data, linked data, infrastructure resources
