Transparency and open data at the G8

The Group of Eight (almost universally abbreviated to G8) is an unofficial forum for the leaders of the world’s eight wealthiest countries – at the time of writing, these were Canada, France, Germany Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The Presidency of the G8 rotates every year, and 2013 sees the UK take the helm and hence set the agenda for the main meeting (held in Lough Erne on 17-18 June). The key themes for this year will be:

• Tax – ensuring compliance and making sure that everything is done fairly
• Trade – advancing trade between nations
• Transparency – promoting free and open governance

You can read all about the UK’s G8 Presidency and the themes for this year at GOV.UK.

From a scientific perspective, the most interesting theme here is transparency. Not due to the fight against bribery, corruption and cronyism (which is hugely important), but due to the increasing promotion of open data. SIN Officer Alexandra Weirich wrote about this in a previous blog post – in brief, the vast amounts of data that governments produce should be made freely accessible to all so that it may be used to further the public interest and increase accountability.

The UK has enthusiastically adopted the open data model, creating the Open Data Institute and Data Strategy Board and releasing new datasets on the data.gov.uk website under the Open Government Licence. The availability of this data allows people to build new data-driven applications for public benefit, check whether policy interventions are having their intended effect and simply analyse or mash the data up to create interesting infographics or articles. Part of the transparency initiative at the G8 will push countries to make more data freely available to citizens, in open formats and able to be compared to other countries’ data.

The UK government also recently commissioned Stephan Shakespeare, Chair of the Data Strategy Board, to conduct an independent review of public sector information and make recommendations on opportunities for growth and widening access. The recommendations centred on ensuring that data is released quickly and in interoperable formats, and that the capacity is there to take advantage of any opportunities. The government published its official response to the Review last week, accepting the challenge and setting out plans to formulate a National Data Strategy as part of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Action Plan.

This flurry of activity around open data and open access in scientific publishing (which we also wrote about recently) can only enhance international cooperation in the sciences – from combining newly-available datasets to developing new services to studying the effects on democracy itself, the UK is open for collaboration.