Access to data is more vital than ever to help decision making during the coronavirus crisis. The ODI – with funding from Luminate – is offering free support to make data, models and software as open as possible so more people can use it
Data is playing a vital role in helping to support research into the coronavirus and develop ways of responding to Covid-19 and its impacts.
While collecting this data is essential, making the data as open as possible should be the next step to enable more people to make the decisions needed to tackle the virus and its impacts. When data is open for people to access, use and share, research and innovation can take place more quickly and, arguably, with more efficacy. Reducing the steps that researchers and developers have to go through to get access to data means insights can be derived more rapidly.
To help make more data to help with tackling Covid-19 and its impacts available as open data, the ODI is running a programme of free support to people and organisations who have data they think could help the world to navigate the pandemic.
You might be:
- a public authority collecting data about Covid-19 and the capacity of the health system
- a developer building a symptom checking app who wants to contribute the data collected to inform a national or international response
- a researcher conducting a survey about attitudes and behaviours of people to public health interventions
- a company with data about consumer demand or business impact which could be of benefit in addressing supply chain concerns
- a charity with information about how vulnerable people are coping with the coronavirus crisis
These are just a few examples. If you don’t fit into any of these categories, but have data you think could be useful, want to share it and look at ways of making it open, please complete the form below. We can help with technology, licensing, anonymisation, ethics, and governance; if we can’t help we’ll endeavour to put you in touch with someone who can.