Working with ODI Leeds and The Data City, in June and July, we’re setting out to produce a proof-of-concept visualisation; to make it easier for people to find – and understand - the role of different organisations in the UK data economy.
One of the priorities of the UK government, described within the National Data Strategy, is to unlock the value of data across the economy, and the government’s Plan for Growth includes a vision of the UK as a data services hub. But what role is data already playing in our economy? Which organisations are collecting, sharing or selling data? Which are using it to provide valuable services, insights and digital tools? We want to find out.
In this new project, we aim to visualise part of the UK’s data ecosystem and to build our own and others’ understanding of it. We work internationally but in this first phase, we will focus on the UK, in part because we have a good dataset to work with by partnering with The Data City.
This project is a dive into data about UK companies using advanced analytics to visualise part of the data economy in 2021. Whilst the majority of the Companies House data we’ll be using in the project concerns private sector organisations, a surprising number of publicly funded bodies are also included. Over the next two months, we want to gain a broader perspective of how the data economy works, is structured and is evolving to inform national and local strategies. We don’t know what we’ll find along the way, and we’ll be working in the open to encourage others to get involved.
We know we’re not the first to tackle a project of this kind. Gavin Freeguard worked on mapping a data ecosystem of UK government in 2018, updating it in 2020. Our work develops the brief in to the private sector. Of course, there may be other, similar work that we’re not aware of and if you have done, or know of any work in this area we would love to hear from you.
To find out more about the technical aspects of the project, methodology and tools, head over to the ODI Leeds project hub page. We expect to find gaps, and experience challenges along the way. We’ll be learning as we go, sharing what we find and if the project is useful we’ll work to develop the concept further.
Join our co-working session
We’ll be holding an open, co-working session for the project which anyone can join. It’s at 12-noon on Tuesday 29 June. Sign up here if you’d like to come along.