Established in 2018, The Data Stewards Network is a program that seeks to train, connect, and support responsible data leaders working across sectors in the public interest. Today run by The GovLab at New York University and The Data Tank, it has taught some 9,500 responsible data leaders, recruited over 50 faculty, and organized courses and training around the world.

Data Stewardship is a critical component of modern data and AI governance focused on enabling access to data for re-use in a sustainable, systematic, and responsible way.  It manifests as a set of competencies and skills that can be used to facilitate the exchange of data and identify opportunities for collaboration.

While the name “data steward” can be informal catch-all, a large number of organizations have created specific data steward roles and functions. Data stewards may also appear as an intermediary organization facilitating data collaborations or a set of guiding principles. See this resource for more details.

The Data Stewards Network is organized by The GovLab (New York City) and The Data Tank (Brussels), with strategic leadership provided by Stefaan G. Verhulst, Co-Founder of both, and a Research Professor at the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University. It is supported by over 50 faculty members from across the world, each of whom are leaders in their field. To learn more, check out our Faculty page.

The Data Stewards Network provides a variety of courses, webinars, and other training programs throughout the year. We group these under three categories:

• Masterclass: A data stewardship masterclass is a lesson or workshop given by our faculty. Our masterclasses are usually organized by external partners and our course lead, Stefaan Verhulst is involved as the lecturer.
• Deep Dive: A data stewardship deep dive is one of our offerings that focuses on one topic within data stewardship by providing a thorough, detailed analysis or investigation. Instead of looking at the surface, you will explore every part of the subject to gain a complete understanding. Our deep dive series contains different modules within a chosen topic and is implemented across five weeks (with one live session each week).
• Bootcamp: A one-week intensive, one-month hybrid, or eight weeks fully online intensive course that covers the entire data stewardship canvas. The bootcamp is organized with partners and is usually free for participants due to the generous support of our funders. The bootcamp includes main lectures accompanied by local guest faculty lectures and field visits to leading data and AI entities. If you are interested in organizing a bootcamp for your city, region, country, get in touch.

You can learn more about and register for these through our Offerings page.

Depending on the format of the offerings they cover different topics. Overall, our resources page covers the basic information of what is covered in each offering. The Data Stewardship Canvas is the main toolkit that guides the bootcamps, while the deepdives each pertain to specific learning objectives. See specific offerings for more.

The courses are taught by our faculty members representing a pool of experts across academia, policy, and practitioner worlds. For specific information on who teaches specific offerings, please refer to the dedicated offering from the offerings page. The faculty is always presented at the bottom of the page.

The offerings are generally open to representatives from the public, private, and civil society sectors working at the intersection of data, AI, and public interest. The offerings are not technical in nature, but rather focus on the governance, policy, and light technical aspects of data re-use and stewardship strategies and implementation. Some specific bootcamps are open to a target audience that might exclude representatives across some sectors, so make sure to check the specific offering to be informed.

All our courses can be found on the Offerings page of our website. Simply browse the “Upcoming Offerings” section and click the button labelled “Register”. You will be redirected to a registration page or, if we are collaborating with an outside partner, a separate site to submit your information.

For all offerings, we will send you a confirmation email with any information needed for joining the course.

If a course is already full, the panel will show a waitlist option instead. Join it and we'll be in touch if a place opens up.

For questions about a specific course, get in touch.

A data stewardship deep dive series runs for five weeks with one live session each week (90-minute module) and assignments and asynchronous coordination throughout the entire five weeks.

The length of a data stewardship bootcamp varies but is indicated in its description on the Offerings page. The one-week intensive in-person (9:00am to 4:00pm), one-month hybrid (9:00am to 4:00pm in-person, 2:30pm - 5:00pm online), and a fully online bootcamp runs over the course of eight weeks with one session per week.

The deepdive series costs 1000EUR (incl. VAT). The bootcamps that are funded by our partners are usually free or in certain cases require a fee of around 300EUR. For the exact pricing of each course, check the dedicated offerings page for the specific offering.

Yes, you will receive a certificate signed by The Data Tank and The GovLab jointly. This will be an electronic certificate that can be disseminated across platforms (i.e. Linkedin).

In order to be updated, make sure to visit our website accordingly. In addition, please make sure to subscribe to our newsletters:

1. Data Stewards Newsletter
2. Living Library Newsletter.

For direct communication, reach out via our contact page, or email us directly at: contact@datastewards.net. We usually respond in 2 business days.