A unified definition of data trusts: roles, comparative positioning, and typology

Abstract

In the evolving digital economy, the challenge of sharing data while ensuring data sovereignty has become increasingly critical. Data trusts have been proposed as a governance model built around independent, fiduciary stewardship of data exchange between providers and consumers. Despite the concept’s potential, research in this domain remains nascent and fragmented across disciplines. Through a structured, topic-centered literature review, we address three research questions on the conceptualization of data trusts, the roles within the ecosystem, and outstanding research gaps. Our key contributions are threefold. First, we conceptualize data trusts through a consolidated definition, position them among adjacent data intermediaries, and derive a typology of four archetypes along primary objective and locus of governance authority. Second, we consolidate the fragmented role vocabulary into a minimal five-role model. Third, we propose a theory-informed research agenda that identifies nine gap categories and outlines directions for future work.