to arrive at detailed insights about cooperation decisions an indepth analysis of the application cases was conducted by doing so the crucial decision criteria were investigated and highlighted the relative importance of decision criteria varies with the field of cooperation that is evaluated for example for smart metering different factors appear to be of importance whereas for network operation other factors come into play in addition stakeholders have their own focus regarding the importance of specific criteria eg for dsos exerting control on an ict network that is used for grid operation is of great importance