Requirements for Governance and Organizational Structure

We collaboratively define requirements for the governance and organizational structure based on our principles, the Code of Conduct for operating trustworthy data spaces based on digital self-determination, the Digital Public Goods Standard, the Best Practices for the Governance of Digital Public Goods and the Good Practices for Data Ecosystem Prototypes. Based on these requirements, we will design and implement a governance and organizational structure.

ID	Requirement	Category	Status	…
ACC-001	rules are monitored by stakeholders i.e. their representatives	Accountability
ACC-002	“no unjustified unequal treatment of actors … objective criteria for any unequal treatment of actors. They communicate them clearly and explain to all actors why these criteria justify unequal treatment.”	Accountability
ACC-003	transparent organisation, business model, processes and decisions	Accountability
ACC-004	possibility to sanction people/orgs that violate rules (increasing in severity for repeat offenses).	Accountability
ACC-005	possibility to exclude people/orgs	Accountability	partially covered by statutes (Art. 6 Exclusion)
ACC-006	mechanisms and arenas to fairly and efficiently (rapidly, low cost) resolve conflicts between participants	Accountability
ACC-007	“anticipate, prevent, and do no harm by design”	Accountability
ACC-008	“Der Infrastrukturbetreiber sollte keine eigenen Anwendungsfälle verfolgen, die zu Interessenkonflikten führen.”	Accountability
ACC-009	possibility to remove “dictator”	Accountability	covered by statutes (members choose board, board chooses director)
FNR-001	receive grants from foundations (i.e. tax exemption?)	Funding & Revenue	statutes fulfil requirements for tax exemption
FNR-002	receive government funds	Funding & Revenue	statutes (cooperating with government)
FNR-003	generate income	Funding & Revenue
FNR-004	profit must be reinvested/cannot be extracted	Funding & Revenue	covered by statutes (art. 2)
LOC-001	low admin costs/overhead (accounting, legal etc.)	Legal & Operational Capacity
LOC-002	sign contracts (like service level agreements) with other legal entities (e.g. monitoring tool providers)	Legal & Operational Capacity
LOC-003	contract organizations for work (including “indirectly” pay salaries	Legal & Operational Capacity
LOC-004	“governance framework is effectively applied and implemented”	Legal & Operational Capacity
LOC-005	clear roles and responsibilities (RACI)	Legal & Operational Capacity
OWN-001	possibility to hand it over to government or third-parties frictionlessly	Ownership
OWN-002	low risk of unfriendly takeover / capture (i.e. to privatize)	Ownership	partially covered by statutes (quorums for change of statutes; board elections)
OWN-003	“Ownership of assets that the digital public good produces must be clearly defined and documented. For example, through copyright, trademark or other publicly available information.”	Ownership
PDM-001	decision-making by stakeholders (data users, providers, 3rd parties)	Participation & Decision-Making	statutes?
PDM-002	efficient decision-making processes	Participation & Decision-Making	statutes
PDM-003	rules are made by stakeholders i.e. their representatives	Participation & Decision-Making	statutes?
PDM-004	participation is open to anyone sharing our values and adhering to our principles, rules and guidelines	Participation & Decision-Making	statutes (art.4 Membership)
PDM-005	“inclusive process to determine how, and to what extent, a balance of interests is envisaged”	Participation & Decision-Making	statutes?
PDM-006	“safeguard the balance of interests by enabling transparent representation mechanisms or other effective processes for taking into account the interests of all actors. … ensure there are sufficient resources in place to achieve this.”	Participation & Decision-Making	statutes?
PDM-007	must take into account asymmetrical power and resource distributions among stakeholders	Participation & Decision-Making	statutes?
PDM-008	“Design considerations regarding (iii) stakeholder voice should include: designing for pluralism, uplifting voices from resource-constrained stakeholders, a “meet at eye level approach,” and/or giving more voice to stakeholders according to their capabilities.”
PDM-009	Board takes majority decicions “An organizational norm of making (ii) decisions unanimously to avoid conflict may undermine the formal governance structure by creating a governance structure that informally relies on unanimity.”
PDM-010	“separate strategy and technology/implementation and allocate different decision rights and responsibilities to each board; Emergent government- or foundation-led DPGs may not have the capacity to separate the two boards—they should be ready to follow this best practice as soon as they start scaling; - Guidance: The strategy board should be charged with road map and community-wide decisions; The technology board should be charged with sub-project and code-level decisions.	Participation & Decision-Making