Washington DC, 29 August 2011

(by Ton Zijlstra)

Opening up government data can create value in very diverse areas: participation, democratic control, self empowerment, new or better products and services, more efficient government services, more effective government policies, new government services, and creating new knowledge. Of that last category it seems examples are harder to come by than for the other areas. Last week FastCompany reported one such ongoing example: the US Department of Defense is funding a massive research project, "The Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC)", which will build heavily on making data from various sources available to the public. The DoD goal is to make hard-to-find data on conflicts and insurgencies available to the academic community.

The Universities of Stanford and Princeton are heading the project. Making the data available publicly is a way to involve also academic disciplines (like economics, anthropology and others) that would normally maybe not as easily work together with the Defense Department.

By "providing non-classified and declassified data sets and other information caches to academics and researchers, the Defense Department can essentially crowd source research and analysis." The ESOC project has been underway for over 2 years already.