A Practical Use Case: Lesson Learned From Social Science Research Data Centers

 Access to timely and high-quality granular data is increasingly becoming a key factor for research and evidence based policy-making. For accessing confidential administrative data, the introduction of Research Data Centers (RDCs) has been a success story. RDCs are restricted-access facilities, often at the premises of the data owner, which provide accredited researchers with safe access to sensitive granular data.Although the benefits of an RDC are undisputed, this approach also entails significant costs for all stakeholders.  Successful data sharing approaches therefore need to strike a balance between costs and benefits for all stakeholders. We present the BUBMIC model (BUilding Blocks for enabling MICro data access), which is intended to help inform all stakeholders’ decisions regarding whether and how to make confidential data available for research.Furthermore, we argue that measuring value (and costs) of data sharing is not straightforward in the field of economics. Part of this can be attributed to the absence of established measures. Better measures would ease communication of value and would ultimately lead to more data being pulled out of silos and made available for analysis.Â