Project: DataDonations4SustainableChange

The DataDonations4SustainableChange project is dedicated to the overarching question of how awareness and willingness to donate data can be promoted by means of digital nudges in order to achieve sustainable changes in behaviour in the areas of the environment and health.

The creation of new legal frameworks in recent years has significantly strengthened citizens' right to access their data. At the same time, the opportunities for individuals to donate their data have been simplified, creating an important basis for data donation by the general public. The introduction of digital technologies into the most diverse areas of life has resulted in a large number of promising application contexts for data donations to increase the common good, particularly for complex challenges in the areas of health and the environment.

Despite these efforts, there are significant challenges in terms of mobilisation, motivation and value creation in order to establish data donation as a common and effective form of active citizen participation. The consortium project is investigating the role that digital nudges can play in meeting these challenges. The aim is to analyse the impact and interdependencies of digital nudges across the individual stages of the data donation process. Nudges are understood as changes in decision-making processes that can influence people's behaviour without resorting to prohibitions or changing economic incentives. Digitalisation offers new opportunities for the personalised and dynamic design of nudges, which are analysed within the project from the perspectives of communication science, management information systems and behavioural economics.

DataDonations4SustainableChange thus provides insights and recommendations for action on data donations as an opportunity for active citizen participation to solve urgent challenges facing society, such as climate change, resource scarcity or the early detection, prevention and containment of serious diseases. Based on empirical findings, the project aims to demonstrate the actual potential of data donations, but also their limitations in the various application contexts. These results should open up concrete recommendations for action on how the legal framework for data donation, which is only just becoming established, can be designed and further developed as effectively as possible.