The Centre for Data Futures is launching its new Data Empowerment Clinic next week. What makes this initiative unique?
The Clinic builds on incredible work that’s already happening across the ecosystem. Over the past five to seven years, people and organisations have been experimenting with new approaches to data governance that include data trusts, cooperatives, Indigenous-led data initiatives, and other models that put communities at the centre.
But the challenge is, many of these efforts have struggled to stay sustainable. A big part of that comes down to capacity. There simply aren’t enough people with the right mix of skills to steward data responsibly and effectively. As our Centre’s Director puts it, data stewards are "the missing profession of our time": people who can bring together technical know-how, governance expertise, and community insight to ensure that data is managed in ways that are ethical, participatory, and genuinely aligned with collective value.
That’s what we’re trying to build through the Clinic. We’re surfacing these capacity gaps while also training the next generation of data stewards - people who can navigate across legal, technical, and social dimensions and apply that knowledge in practice. What feels unique about our approach is that we’re anchoring this effort within an academic space. It’s a signal that these capacities can’t remain abstract, they need to be cultivated now, through learning that’s deeply connected to practice.
For that reason, our methodology is focused on experiential, problem-based learning. Through the clinic, students will work directly with practitioners (our case study partners) to tackle real challenges on the ground. Considering that data empowerment structures cannot be designed to be a one-size-fits-all solution, this model allows us to take note of and respond to varying contexts. For instance, our partners operate across different geographies, legal systems, possess different cultural norms around data, and have different community priorities. That’s exactly what we want to explore together: what data empowerment can look like in practice, in all its diversity.
Why is there a need for a Data Empowerment Clinic right now?
We’ve seen a massive expansion in our ability to generate and use data, especially with the rise of AI and other data-intensive systems. Yet our capacity to steward that data responsibly and equitably hasn’t kept pace. Too often, communities are left feeling disempowered by digital systems that shape their lives but remain out of their control.
Additionally, a lot of the conversation around data and AI has primarily focused on its harms, and rightly so. There are warranted concerns about bias, surveillance, and the disproportionate impacts these technologies have on vulnerable and marginalised communities. These aren’t distant illusions of harm, we’ve already seen the dangers play out in how data is used to exclude, profile, and reinforce existing inequalities. But alongside this critical work, there also needs to be more of us focused on designing and shaping alternative systems that reflect our collective values and respond to what communities need.
That’s where data empowerment comes in. It’s a transformative approach that aims to gives individuals and communities the knowledge, tools, and collective agency to participate in how data is generated, used, and governed. It’s about reclaiming voice and power in decisions that shape our wellbeing, our rights, and our futures.
Data empowerment can mean different things. What do you see as the main challenges in this area, and how can the Clinic begin to address them?
One of the biggest challenges is the gap between aspiration and implementation. Many communities and organisations want greater agency over their data, but often lack the legal, technical, and governance frameworks to make that a reality. Even when the intent is there, the mechanisms to act on it are still emerging. Another persistent challenge is that data practices are too often designed from the top down, rather than built with the people they affect. When participation happens, it’s usually after key decisions have already been made, rather than embedded throughout the process.
The Clinic aims to bridge these gaps through hands-on collaboration. Our interdisciplinary student teams will work directly with partner organisations on scoped and open-ended challenges, co-designing approaches that make data practices more participatory and genuinely empowering. In doing so, we hope to help partners move from principle to practice, translating ideas about data empowerment into practical, context-specific models that can sustain themselves over time. It’s about creating the conditions where communities aren’t just consulted but can shape the systems that affect them.
A distinctive element of the Clinic is the role of students. How will they be involved, and what will they gain from the experience?
Students are at the heart of the clinic’s operations. We see them as driving forces in being able to problem solve along with the case study partners. We’ve designed our process to be grounded in mutual learning. Our student teams will bring a brilliant mix of capabilities across law, technology, and digital humanities, but they’re equally there to learn from partners and engage with the complexities of implementation, understand real-world constraints, and co-develop solutions that are both innovative and practical.
It’s an invaluable opportunity for them to build the kind of interdisciplinary expertise that the next generation of data stewards will need. At its core, the Clinic is a space for collaboration and exchange, where everyone - students, practitioners, and researchers - learns from one another through doing.
The Clinic will also support a range of partners who want to use data more responsibly. Tell us more about this first cohort the clinic will engage with
We will be collaborating with three case study partners, each at a different stage of their data empowerment journey. For our first case, we’ll work with school leaders to explore how communities can co-create responsible, inclusive, and participatory data practices, with particular attention to supporting SEND learners and disadvantaged groups.
Our second partner is advancing Indigenous data sovereignty and culturally grounded health data practices through an Indigenous Health Data Cooperative. We will support this work by collaboratively evaluating different structural options, identifying the best operational model, and understanding how technology can support culturally grounded governance.
The third case will focus on empowering the loopers community, a global, self-organised network of people living with diabetes. We aim to engage this community to better understand their motivations, interests, and appetite for collective data sharing, and to identify sustainable and meaningful approaches to participation and governance of this data.
These partners represent a spectrum of organisational types from emerging data mobilisers just beginning to organise around shared goals, to established groups transitioning into participatory data custodianship. Each offers unique lessons, and the Clinic will learn alongside them to co-develop practices that advance data empowerment in these domains.
Beyond students and partners, the Clinic has broader goals. Who can get involved, and who will benefit most from its work?
The Clinic is developing an educational learning resource platform in partnership with Mozilla Foundation for a broad range of learners (for e.g. students, practitioners, and anyone exploring new pathways as potential data stewards). These resources will draw on the extensive work already happening across the ecosystem, highlighting, amplifying, and keeping these insights alive.
This platform is intended to be collaborative and evolving. It will help build capacity, surface practical solutions, and connect people with the networks and tools they need to develop data empowerment structures.
The Clinic is not starting from scratch; rather, it aims to listen, learn, and work with others to ensure these resources are useful, grounded in practice, and accessible to all who want to participate in advancing data empowerment.