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All countries are investing in health data. There are however significant cross-country differences in data availability and use. Some countries stand out for their innovative practices enabling privacy-protective data use while others are falling behind with insufficient data and restrictions that limit access to and use of data, even by government itself. Countries that develop a data governance framework that enables privacy-protective data use will not only have the information needed to promote quality, efficiency and performance in their health systems, they will become a more attractive centre for medical research. After examining the current situation in OECD countries, a multi-disciplinary advisory panel of experts identified eight key data governance mechanisms to maximise benefits to patients and to societies from the collection, linkage and analysis of health data and to, at the same time, minimise risks to the privacy of patients and to the security of health data. These mechanisms include coordinated development of high-value, privacy-protective health information systems, legislation that permits privacy-protective data use, open and transparent public communication, accreditation or certification of health data processors, transparent and fair project approval processes, data de-identification and data security practices that meet legal requirements and public expectations without compromising data utility and a process to continually assess and renew the data governance framework as new data and new risks emerge.

In order to attain its objective of becoming a high-income economy by 2020, Malaysia is engaged in efforts to enhance the performance of its innovation system. A range of challenges need to be addressed and different policy tools can help in this respect. For this purpose the national intellectual property (IP) system can play a pivotal role. This review assesses how Malaysian's national IP system promotes innovation and offers recommendations to improve the design of the system. It does so by analysing the organisation and governance of Malaysia's IP system as well as opportunities and challenges for different local users - ranging from small businesses to frontier companies and public research institutions. Moreover, the review discusses the state of IP markets in Malaysia and related policies and provides a comprehensive set of statistics describing the use of IP in Malaysia in recent years.

This review takes stock of the development and implementation of regulatory reform at a critical juncture for Lithuania. Confronted with the challenge of supporting growth and competitiveness, Lithuania has embarked upon an ambitious reform programme that addresses not only the development of new regulations but also the inspection and enforcement processes that support the effective implementation of these regulations with the least administrative burden for citizens and businesses. This is relatively rare among OECD members and the review assesses this comprehensive reform programme with a special focus on inspection and enforcement. First in its kind, the review benchmarks Lithuania's reforms against the OECD Best Practice Principles on Regulatory Enforcement and Inspection. The review identifies practical recommendations for strengthening regulatory effectiveness and support growth and competitiveness.

Measuring regulators’ performance can strengthen the contribution of regulatory policies to sustainable growth and development. While measuring a regulator’s performance is a fundamental function of a “world class” regulator, it is challenging, starting with the definition of what should be measured and including the attribution of outcomes to regulators’ actions and the availability of robust and evidence-based evaluation methodologies. This review is the first application of an innovative methodology that helps regulators address these challenges and improve the way in which they assess their own performance. The mehtodology puts performance measurement in the wider context of governance arrangements of economic regulators. The review finds a close link between the independence of the regulator and performance. It also stresses the importance of focusing on regulatory tools and processes and measuring their quality to help improve performance. It highlights the need to define clear goals to develop output and outcome indicators that can be actionable and useful for the regulator. The review provides a roadmap for strengthening performance assessment by Colombia's communications regulator and is expected to help advance the better regulation agenda of other Colombian regulators and economic regulators of OECD members.

The establishment of dedicated regulatory bodies in charge of regulating water services, whilst being recent, is nevertheless a consistent trend among OECD and non-OECD countries. This report presents a picture as of September 2014 of the governance arrangements, operational modalities and use of regulatory tools across a sample of 34 established water regulators. It relies on the OECD Best Practice Principles for Regulatory Policy: The Governance of Regulators to structure the information collected through a survey exercise. It has been developed in close co-operation with the OECD Network of Economic Regulators (NER).

The results from the survey show that the 34 water regulators show generally a high level of adoption of good governance principles and practices. They display functions and powers that are in line with their objectives. Water regulators also show a strong culture of consultation. Other areas, in particular evaluation of regulatory impacts, could be further strengthened.