Optimising cohort data in Europe

longer to achieve competitive advantage but rather to generate an appropriate strategy where resources and capabilities can be optimally used for cohort data integration. As a result, the dominant organising principle is not the one of competition but rather of collaboration, namely, what kind of resources and capabilities are needed for a sustainable collection, sharing and access to cohort data? According to the RBV, a firm is a bundle of productive heterogeneous resources that generates products and leverages knowledge related to these products (Barney, 1991). Each firm possesses different bundles of resources that allow to achieve a strategic advantage in terms of innovation, production and supply chain in specific market environments. In the context of research institutions involved in the coordination of cohorts, this means that organisations, stakeholders, researchers and health data communities need particular patterns of resources in order to manage cohorts effectively. Resources can be classified according to two dimensions namely their degree of operationalisation and their scope of application (Barney, 1991; Andreu et al., 2008). First, resources are either tangible or intangible. Tangible resources have physical attributes and can be both observed and quantified. In the context of cohort research, examples of such resources may be existing infrastructures, database architecture, funding and datasets. By contrast, intangible resources are not visible and cannot be quantified or operationalised. In cohort research, examples of such resources may be reputation, academic relationships, informal communication channels, trust and research culture. Both types of resources are crucial for coordinating cohorts (e.g. common datasets cannot be curated without trust between data controllers and data providers). The difference is that tangible resources are easier to transmit across institutions while intangible resources are easier to share within specific institutions. Second, resources are either specialised or versatile. Specialised resources apply to a narrow range of contexts while versatile resources operate in broad contexts. Specialised resources are thus used to solve local issues (e.g. standards from national datasets) while versatile resources are related to international ones (e.g. measurement standards across EU, trans-European legislation such as the GDPR). In uncertain settings, specialised resources can be more effective than versatile ones because they are more robust (Barney, 1991). Resource position barriers refer to situations where individuals cannot have access to the resource while resource immobility means that a specific resource cannot be used, shared and applied effectively. Thus, research actors and research institutions need specific resource patterns of different types for coordinating cohorts globally. The question is how resource types should be distributed and which knowledge capabilities can be used for leveraging these resources. This is where the KBV can provide a useful framework of explanation. In strategic management, the KBV explores how employees are increasingly involved in