Open data is a tool with enormous potential, both for implementing open government and participation practices and for improving the effectiveness of academic research, by increasing data transparency, accessibility, cost-saving and reproducibility (Boulton et al., 2011). Unfortunately, several impediments have been recognised preventing the open data process from fully realizing its positive effect (Zuiderwijk et al. 2021). The “Open Government Data” project aims to extract value from administrative data and provide the scientific community with new tools to understand the governance processes of local institutions. Starting from the open data provided by some Italian cities and regions, the project aims to create new ready-to-use research data to be made available to all researchers, adopting a more transparent and collaborative methodological standard and process (the “code-first” approach) (Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2014).