Can policy unlock the power of data?
Data is a powerful enabler of scientific progress. Wellcome reflects on how policy can help ensure scientific data continues to deliver public benefit in this new era and is exploring perspectives on how to navigate advances in AI, economic pressures and geopolitical tensions as they challenge established models of collaboration and data sharing.
Katie Greig
Hannah Hope
4-minute read
Katie Greig
Hannah Hope
4-minute read
Scientific data for public good
Wellcome is a major funder of data infrastructure and a long-standing advocate of open science principles.
This is clearly demonstrated through the Human Genome Project, where Wellcome played a central role in ensuring genomic data was released rapidly into the public domain. At the time, there was a real risk that sequence data could become commercially restricted, and so open release was intended to enable collaboration and maximise scientific value.
This principle has since shaped wider practice, from pathogen genomics to large-scale initiatives like the Darwin Tree of Life, helping to accelerate discovery and support global research efforts.
A changing landscape
New technologies like AI and large-scale computation have made curated scientific datasets even more valuable. Scientific data is now cheaper and faster to generate than ever before, and far more valuable.
As data becomes more valuable, tensions over who controls it, who can use it, and who benefits are intensifying. As biodata has become cheaper and easier to generate there are mounting conversations around how open data repositories will remain financially sustainable, and further environmental sustainability concerns.
Can policy solutions unlock scientific progress?
Many data types, like those linked to people, pathogens or biodiversity, require careful stewardship to ensure privacy, security and public trust is maintained. As a result, how data is governed in practice is becoming a central policy challenge.
These debates span a wide set of issues. This includes how data is accessed and how benefits are shared, but also how data is controlled and protected, how sensitive health data is used responsibly, and how the infrastructure that underpins data sharing is sustained over time. Questions of sovereignty, security, consent and value are all important parts of this landscape.
These are inherently difficult trade-offs. Measures to strengthen fairness, control or security can limit collaboration and slow scientific progress. More open approaches can accelerate discovery, but risk reinforcing inequalities or exposing new vulnerabilities.
Governments and multilateral organisations are responding to this evolving landscape. Emerging frameworks, particularly focused on genomic data access and benefit sharing under discussion through the Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Health Organization, reflect growing efforts to define clearer rules around how data is accessed, used and valued.
Looking ahead
As Wellcome’s work in this space deepens, we are actively inviting bold, critical perspectives on the future of stewarding scientific data in this new era.
The conditions that enabled open data are changing, and governance approaches must keep pace. The Science Policy Labs team are speaking with policymakers, data providers, civil society groups, and others to understand how we can unlock the power of data for public good in ways that are responsible, equitable and sustainable.
We are particularly interested in insights that grapple with both the transformative opportunities and the complex challenges inherent in reshaping how data is governed at a global scale.
We are particularly interested in insights that grapple with both the transformative opportunities and the complex challenges inherent in reshaping how data is governed at a global scale.
We are gathering insight and expertise on these key questions:
- What are the key tensions related to how data is generated, managed, used, stored and shared, and how are organisations responding to them?
- How are these tensions being effectively navigated to ensure science can develop for the public good?
- What policy solutions are already in place or actively being negotiated? Where might they be falling short?
- Where are there are gaps in knowledge and evidence, that could support sustainable and thoughtful policy intervention design?
- How is the role of governments, institutions and philanthropies changing in this era?
