Sustainability and Governance of Data Ecosystems

Data ecosystems are often the most promising choice to enhance the development of many areas, from industry to social science. Both academic and industry research departments, over time, have refined this technology, formalizing principles, methodologies, and approaches to better handle the initial development overhead in terms of challenges, design, and development. However, there is still space for improvement regarding the countermeasures to keep these projects alive in the long run. These platforms face a significant rate of early-stage failure, primarily due to low user engagement and high cost. Therefore, it is necessary to account for these challenges, particularly in the design and early stages of deployment. The reasons for this phenomenon are already under investigation at the business level, but how to technically account for these phenomena in the design phase and in the technology is still something to be discussed. Therefore, this paper first identifies the main reasons that threaten a long-term use and life of a data ecosystem. Then, discuss the mitigations at the design level and the possible technological solutions. This work moves a step toward a sustainable data ecosystem thanks to the appropriate data governance and technical design choices.