The Data Tank and The GovLab, in a call hosted by Stefaan Verhulst, organized the second Data Stewardship Trends to Watch session for 2026.

The Trends to Watch series brings together our global Data Stewards alumni every two months to explore and discuss the latest developments shaping the data stewardship landscape.

From the value of data and digital sovereignty to licensing regimes that could unlock data's untapped potential, the June session offered a vivid reminder of just how dynamic, complex, and crucial the data stewardship ecosystem has become.

Check out a recording of the full conversation here. The following resources were discussed during the session:

Focus on Value:

The (Missing) Value of Data

The Missing Value of Data is a new paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that treats data as an asset (measuring its volume based on the quality of firms’ revenue forecasts, and endogenously determining its depreciation). The data value is then capitalized and the paper explores what the measured GDP would be if data was treated similarly to a physical asset. The findings suggest that the aggregate value of data is about 1.5% of GDP.
Bad government statistics can cost the economy billions describes a study that attempts to put a number on the value of reliable numbers. Declining response rates to key American government surveys hamper the accuracy of official statistics. As such, poor government data collection can lead to significant economic costs by undermining the reliability of labor and expenditure statistics critical for policymaking.
Data Asset Foundations launched by the Isle of Man Government represents another important initiative treating data as an asset. It proposes the first legal and operational framework specifically designed to treat data as a capital asset—enabling businesses to recognise, govern, register, and unlock the value of their data within a trusted statutory structure.

Focus on Data Winter:

Data at a crossroads

Data Systems at a Crossroads: Official Statistics for a New Era is a paper by PARIS21 that argues that the statistical community is at a crossroads with the developments in the space. Incremental adjustment alone may no longer be sufficient. The paper provides a framework to facilitate informed debate among all stakeholders of official statistics as they chart a course towards more sustainable and inclusive data systems.
Where Did the Middle East Go? Satellite Imaging in the Fog of War is a piece published on Bloomberg that reports on satellite imaging operations stopping with the request of the US government that all satellite imagery providers “voluntarily implement an indefinite withholding” of imagery retroactive to March 9 across a broad swath of the Middle East. The model then changed to a “managed access model” evaluating requests on a case-by-case basis.
23 Major News Sites Have Blocked the Wayback Machine – Digital History In Danger is another piece published on Gadget that addresses the data winter phenomenon. Twenty-three major news outlets, including the New York Times and over 200 USA Today properties, have blocked the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine from preserving their content, citing concerns about AI training and copyright. The move threatens one of the most important tools for digital accountability: the Wayback Machine has historically been used to expose quiet editorial changes, verify claims, and preserve public records. Some of the outlets blocking the Archive have themselves relied on it for investigative journalism. With no comparable public alternative, the growing trend raises serious questions about who controls digital history and on what terms.
Dismay as Trump officials to dismantle key ocean monitoring system is a piece published in The Guardian that reports the Trump administration plans to dismantle a $368m deep-sea observation system that has for more than a decade provided crucial data on ocean systems and climate change. In a notice, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it had “initiated descoping of the Ocean Observatories Initiative” (OOI), a vast ocean observation network comprising more than 900 instruments that collect data on ocean health, including current patterns, climate variability and marine biodiversity.
Are We Entering the Age of Data Nihilism? This isanother thought-provoking piece that questions whether we are entering the age of data nihilism. It acknowledges the fact that digital traces (photos, search queries, and more) are the raw material fueling the AI revolution and powering technologies that are reshaping our world, yet for the people creating it, this data has become functionally worthless. It raises points on the average internet user not thinking about the value of their data and instead giving it away to some of the wealthiest companies in the world for free.

Focus on Unlocking the Value (Licensing):

Unlocking the value of public sector information is an initiative by Projects by IF that developed a UK Government Licensing Framework (GLF) to enable the right conditions for public sector information re-use. The Open Government Licence shares the same simple ambition as the influential Creative Commons Attribution Licence: anyone can re-use public sector information in almost any way they choose, as long as they attribute it.
From Signals to Infrastructure: Strengthening the Commons for the AI Era is a piece by Creative Commons that unfolds CC’s plans amidst the AI Era. The CC signals framework is advancing several high-impact interventions and aims to embed public interest values into the AI knowledge ecosystem by:

Helping people make informed decisions in the current moment
Making Attribution the Norm in AI
Building New Tooling that Protects Public Interest Uses while Restoring Agency

NOODL: An experiment in equitable data licensing: promise and limits is a recent publication by Open Future that analyses the Nwulite Obodo Open Data License (NOODL), a tiered licensing framework developed for African language datasets, as an experiment in open data licensing and a contribution to emerging approaches to data commons governance.

Focus on Data Supply:

Mobility Data for Communities (MD4C) is an NSF-funded data platform that makes large-scale mobility insights accessible to communities and community organizations across Massachusetts. The platform provides aggregated, anonymized data on how people move through cities supporting evidence-based decision making without compromising individual privacy.
The Federal Data Field Guide is developed by UC Berkeley in collaboration with partners and serves as a guide to provide a broader context for federal data users and stakeholders to consider a broader range of data types in their research and advocacy. This guide is organized into eight primary categories of federal data, each representing distinct collection methods, policy frameworks, and use cases.
SDR UK launches new data catalogue is an announcement about the new data catalogue that was launched by Smart Data Research UK making it easier than ever for researchers to find and access smart datasets from across our six data services. The (beta) catalogue brings together datasets covering finance, energy, transport, health, imagery and more in one searchable place.
The Home of AI for Science is an open-science initiative connected to Hugging Face focused on AI for scientific research (“AI4Science”). It acts as a curated hub for datasets, models, benchmarks, tools, blog posts, and community projects across fields like biology, chemistry, physics, medicine, and materials science.
Finally, Access: How Article 40 DSA Changes Platform Research in Practice is a research exploring EU’s Digital Services Act (Article 40) on access to platform data for researchers in the public interest. While early implementation has exposed challenges around compliance and technical standards, the DSA marks a fundamental shift: platform accountability in Europe is now grounded in regulation, not corporate discretion.

Focus on Sovereignty and Stewardship:

Commission proposes tech sovereignty package to strengthen Europe's digital autonomy and resilience was also discussed as one of the most recent EU proposals in light of digital and data sovereignty debate. The European Technological Sovereignty Package is a set of measures to strengthen Europe's capacity in semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud and open source.
Māori-owned data storage network hailed as significant step towards data sovereignty is a recent initiative designed by Te Kāhui Raraunga that aims to develop a decentralized data storage network to protect and empower the Māori community. The project was built on open source technology and led by Māori scientists, Māori engineers and grounded in tikanga Māori, she said.
Framework for Governance of Indigenous Data is another important development in digital sovereignty. Recognising the importance of data for self-determination, the Framework for Governance of Indigenous Data (the Framework) provides a stepping stone towards greater awareness and acceptance by Australian Government agencies of the principles of Indigenous Data Sovereignty. The Framework aims to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people greater agency over how their data are governed within the Australian Public Service (APS) so government held data better reflects their priorities and aspirations.
Living well with data Stewardship as a just and viable paradigm is another recent report that puts forward a “mental model” thinking on data governance. Mental models are believed to shape our sense of what problems are noticed and what solutions to these problems are feasible and possible.
UK Biobank health data listed for sale in China, government confirms is a news piece published by BBC that reports on the medical information of 500,000 participants of one of the UK’s landmark UK Biobank, were offered for sale online in China, the government has confirmed. Technology minister Ian Murray said information of all members of the database was found listed for sale on the website Alibaba.

Updates: Recent Updates and Publications

Finally, to conclude the session, we updated the group on some recent publications and updates sharing the ones below:

Interested to learn more about data stewardship trends? Sign up for the Data Stewards Network mailing at this link. Or contact contact@datastewards.net to learn more.