Duration: September 2024 until February 2026
The establishment of the German Data Institute, which is part of the 2021 coalition agreement, is intended to promote data availability and standardisation and establish data trustee models and licences. The new institution is positioned in a data landscape that is characterised by social and technological upheaval and the establishment of the NFDI. Precisely because the institutional landscape is developing rapidly, the ad hoc project is analysing the political and social framework conditions and decision-making processes that led to the founding of the German Data Institute (DDI). Under the direction of Prof. Dr Isabelle Borucki from the Philipps University of Marburg, two Master’s graduates are working on this one-year project, which begins on 1 September 2024.
Methodologically, the project relies on integrated multi-method approaches, including the analysis of political documents, semi-structured interviews with key actors from politics, administration, business and civil society as well as network analyses to investigate cooperation between the parties involved. These approaches make it possible to understand the formal and informal regulations and dynamics of political decision-making processes and obtain a comprehensive picture of the network structures. The collected data will then be analysed using process tracing to identify causal chains and mechanisms within the decision-making process.
The project aims to scientifically analyse the policy process and establish a cartographic, website-based visualisation of data governance in the area of data infrastructure and data economy around the Data Institute. In addition, talks at scientific conferences, workshops, and publications are planned to disseminate the project results. An interactive dashboard, blog posts, and podcasts with stakeholders will support science communication and knowledge transfer and promote engagement with the broader public.
Project responsibility
Prof. Dr. Isabelle Borucki, Philipps-Universität Marburg | more information
Research assistants
Marlon-Benedikt George, Philipps-Universität Marburg
Jan Borcherding, Philipps-Universität Marburg
What is data policy? A systematic literature review
An article by Marlon-Benedikt George, Jan Borcherding & Isabelle Borucki for the Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft | 31 March 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41358-026-00453-0
The political significance and regulation of data have increased in recent years; at the same time, the term ‘data policy’ has emerged in political discourse. This systematic literature review examines the concept, its contexts of use and its genesis in primarily German-language academic literature. The relevant publications were mapped across four semantic fields: data policy as a policy field, data sovereignty, data sharing, as well as big and open data, and finally European data policy and data governance. The results reveal considerable semantic ambiguity – for instance, in the relationship between data, digital, network and AI policy. Overall, this constitutes a dynamic field that requires further, including empirical, investigation and conceptual refinement.
Doing DDI
Website of the project
With dashboards, blog posts and current information about the project.
Final event
11 July 2025| 10:00 – 12:30 a.m.
Polit-X
Chausseestraße 128
10115 Berlin
The final event of the ZEVEDI ad hoc project Doing DDI – The policy process for the establishment of the German Data Institute, will take place on 11 July 2025. We would like to invite you to participate. On the one hand, we would like to talk to you about the ‘paradigm shift’ in data policy that we have identified: from data protection to data abundance. On the other hand, we would like to discuss how an orientation towards the common good could be realised in the data ecosystem.
Please register using the following form.
Event of the ad hoc project Doing DDI – The policy process for the establishment of the German Data Institute.
programme
