D4.1 Motivations of non-government actors and data holders to become active contributors to the open data ecosystem

Task 4.1 explores the motivations of non-government actors to become active contributors to the Open Data ecosystem by releasing their data into the open data ecosystem.

Governmental actors have historically been the dominant providers of open data. In many cases, such responsibility is engraved in policy documents, from non-binding strategic plans to binding laws and regulations such as the EU Open Data Directive. On the other hand, while there have been some initiatives by non-governmental actors to publish their data as open data, it is still limited and largely remains to be desired (van Loenen et al., 2018). Non-governmental actors are outside the public/governmental sector, such as companies, civil society organisations, and the media. Exploring the motivations for non-governmental actors to contribute to open data is thus essential to developing sustainable Open Data Ecosystems that incorporate both government and non-government open data.

Aligned with the ODECO's Description of Action, this deliverable aims to answer the following three research questions:
• RQ1: What are the motivations of non-governmental data holders to contribute to the open data ecosystem?
• RQ2: What barriers do non-governmental data holders face when contributing to open data ecosystem?
• RQ3: How can the motivations and barriers to sharing non-governmental data become enablers?

Motivations are defined as “the need or reason for doing something” or the “willingness to do something” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2024). On the other hand, barriers are “anything used or acting to block someone from going somewhere or from doing something, or to block something from happening” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2024). In this deliverable, barriers refer to things that hinder actors from contributing to open data ecosystem, negatively affecting the open data community creation. They thus should also be studied in conjunction with motivations to share their data as open data. Their negative influence varies depending on the stakeholders, but they have some typical characteristics that must be considered in the study. Enablers are “something or someone that makes it possible for a particular thing to happen or be done” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2024). In this deliverable, enablers refer to situations in the ecosystem that facilitate or enhance the contribution of open data by non-governmental actors by leveraging the motivations and barriers for them to do so. Motivations and barriers of the following non-government stakeholders were identified: non-specialist users, data journalists, students, NGOs, commercial organisations, and open data intermediaries.
For each stakeholder group, we outline the methods employed and the types of data sources used, including primary (interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, etc.) or secondary (literature review, use case analysis, etc.). Where relevant, we broadened our analysis of stakeholders' motivations and barriers to contribute to open data ecosystems. For example, in the section on non-specialist citizens, we also by considered knowledge (rather than data) contributions.