This large-scale collaboration included 18 research teams from across Canada and internationally who each worked with digital data collected during the 2019 Canadian federal elections. Running between April 2019 and March 2020, the Digital Ecosystem Research Challenge (DERC) mapped the digital ecosystem in order to support increased civic and digital literacy. Findings from the DERC are presented in the Understanding the Digital Ecosystem report, which highlights the importance of collaboration and communication between researchers to address the challenges of navigating trace data and the difficulties of keeping up-to-date with rapid innovations in digital media.