ZEW Economist Irene Bertschek on the Data Strategy of the German Government

The federal government aims to develop a data strategy to significantly increase the availability and use of data in Germany. To this end, the government presented the key points of a data strategy in November 2019. With a view to today’s first hearing on the data strategy at the Federal Chancellery, Professor Irene Bertschek, head of the Research Department “Digital Economy” at ZEW Mannheim and one of the experts invited to the hearing, comments on this matter.

“Compared to other European countries, Germany has made good progress in the exploitation of large amounts of data and data-driven business models. According to Eurostat figures, the share of German companies analysing big data has increased – from just under seven per cent in 2016 to 15 per cent in 2018, putting Germany on a par with France.

A study conducted at ZEW also shows that companies carrying out big data analyses are on average 6.7 per cent more likely to produce product innovations, with companies that promote the IT skills of their employees through specific training benefiting in particular. This innovation potential which the use of data holds must be exploited.

In social and economic science research, however, bureaucratic hurdles still exist when accessing individual data of companies or persons, for example when linking several data sets from different public institutions. In addition, the obligation to delete data provided by public-law institutions at the end of a research project is not up to date. The same is true for data sets that are obtained via web scraping or text and data mining. The rules on the use of data in research should therefore be implemented or adapted in such a way that they are consistent with the guidelines to ensure good scientific practice to which researchers commit themselves.”