About Nesta

Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.

In 2019, Nesta and the Scottish Government embarked on a dialogue with Scottish citizens to understand their opinions and ideas for the use and sharing of health and care data, now and in the future, and to explore possible future uses that improve outcomes for everyone.

Working with partnership organisations to conduct dialogues with citizens, the goals of Data Dialogues were to better understand the views and ideas of people living in Scotland on how their health and social care data should be used.

Using a range of participatory futures methods, the programme explored possible ways health and social care data could be used in future to create greater benefits for everyone, and to test and evaluate innovative methods of engaging and involving the public in conversations about their data. A toolkit for participatory public engagement in digital health and care was produced by the University of Edinburgh.

The Data Dialogues summary report outlines the findings from the four participatory futures projects. The insights were synthesised and expressed as seven relationships that Scottish citizens have with health and social care data.

The data relationships include both the way that a person shares and benefits from data, as well as their attitudes, understanding and beliefs around data sharing.

Data dialogues interactive

Explore citizens' data relationships in more detail through our online portal

Data dialogues relationships diagram.png

Authors

Alice Clay

Alice Clay

Alice Clay

Programme Manager, Health Lab

Alice focused on Digital Health projects, new technologies, and ways we can create and use data to empower people to improve their health and wellbeing.

View profile
Kyle Usher

Kyle Usher

Kyle Usher

Mission Manager (Scotland) - A Sustainable Future

Kyle was Nesta’s Mission Manager for Scotland working on the sustainable future mission and based with the Scotland team in Edinburgh.

View profile