Today, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the third and final phase of the Federal Data Strategy. Data Coalition Chief Executive Officer Nick Hart, Ph.D., issued the following statement following the release of the Strategy’s Principles, Practices, and Draft Action Plan:

The release of the long-awaited Federal Data Strategy from the Trump Administration is a positive sign about the Executive Branch’s recognition that government data can and should be used more strategically to benefit the American public. The strategy provides the data industry, the evidence community, and the American public a clear sense of the long-term priorities for strengthening government’s data infrastructure. The Data Coalition is pleased to see that many of our recommendations were incorporated by the Trump Administration into the Federal Data Strategy.

Through the Federal Data Strategy’s published practices and principles, the Administration is responsibly prioritizing increased availability and stewardship of government data, producing more open data, enabling responsible data sharing processes, breaking down agency data silos, planning for future data activities with learning agendas and agency data plans, and empowering chief data officers at every agency. As written, the Federal Data Strategy will encourage a greater emphasis on data- and evidence-informed decision making throughout our government while taking meaningful steps to implement key provisions of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act.

The Data Coalition looks forward to working with Executive Branch agencies to implement the Federal Data Strategy and will soon provide comments on the draft one-year action plan. In addition, the Data Coalition is excited to announce a partnership with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget on an upcoming event to gather public feedback about the draft action plan.