Data Sharing in Germany

A survey was conducted among 1,051 industrial companies and industry-related service providers. Their responses regarding the quality and quantity of their data sharing were incorporated into a model that assigns intensity scores to companies for their data provision and data reception. The results show that 58 per cent of companies in Germany are not involved in data sharing at all – neither providing data nor receiving it. 38 per cent receive data and only 21 per cent provide it to others. When companies provide data, they are more likely to do so at a high intensity (14 per cent) than at a low intensity (7 per cent). The opposite is true for enterprises that receive data, only 18 per cent doing so at a high, but 20 per cent at a low, intensity. These results suggest a clear potential to make data provision more widespread and data reception more intensive. There is, in general, a po sitive statistical correlation between the intensity of data provision and data reception. In particular, most data providers also receive data from other companies. Finding a cooperation partner, ensuring legal certainty and data sovereignty are challenges in data sharing that many companies are not able to master on their own.