Reducing the frictions hampering data sharing is a key objective for many multiparty initiatives. Data sharing between multiple partners is characterized by significant transaction costs that relate particularly to the time and energy required to reach and formalize an agreement and to translate it into appropriate infrastructure and well-functioning cooperation mechanisms.
Initiatives can deliver value to their members by lowering these costs, thus also reducing the time it takes to effectively share data. This most often requires developing reusable assets or tools that can be leveraged to speed up reaching an agreement and setting up data pipelines. For instance, the Development Data Partnership reduces time to agreements and transaction costs for both data providers and users by supplying a common legal agreement template (which does not need to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis) and readily available data sharing and storage infrastructure. These assets are ready-made and can be adopted by new potential partners without lengthy negotiations.
Reduction of costs as a strategy for the delivery of value to partners can also relate to stages of the data life cycle beyond the sharing phase. As an example, the California Data Collaborative spares its members the costs associated with the recruitment of large teams of data scientists and researchers, as these are hired and pooled together by the Collaborative at a lower fee for all the water management agencies. Cost reduction is a visible and quantifiable strategy for data sharing initiatives to deliver value to members.