PÕ¾ÊÓƵ

Open data

Encouraging data sharing

We believe that data should be open, accessible and reusable. Data sharing helps speed up the pace of discovery and its benefits to society.

As a proactive partner to the research community, PÕ¾ÊÓƵ is pioneering new approaches to data sharing and open data. We’re committed to supporting researchers in sharing their data, helping to make data sharing the new normal.

Featured white papers and reports

We monitor data sharing attitudes and behaviours, building evidence and advocating for good data practice. Discover our latest white papers and reports:

  • . With a wide range of opinions and commentary, this white paper looks at the real-world impact of FAIR, and considers what will be next for research data and open science.

  •  Based on a survey of 7,700 researchers, this whitepaper looks at data sharing attitudes globally, and discusses the challenges that researchers face in sharing their data.

  •  This whitepaper proposes and discusses key ways to improve on research data sharing practices.

  • Report: The State of Open Data. In partnership with Digital Science, this report examines attitudes and experiences of researchers working with open data – sharing it, reusing it, and redistributing it. 

  •  A novel, quantitative and qualitative perspective on open science in Japan in 2018.

  • . This report summarises the findings of a survey with more than 2,000 researchers, looking at the challenges and opportunities for data sharing in China.

Why openly share research data?

Community involvement

We work with the scientific community in a variety of ways to improve data management and publication. We also support a number of education and best practice initiatives.

  • We support a number of education and best practice initiatives. These include: ; ; Love Data Week; ; ; .
  • Our free and series support researchers in understanding the benefits, challenges and practicalities of managing and publishing research data.

Maria Hodges, Executive Editor, BMC 

Graham Smith, Research Data Year group representative


Graham Smith,  (FAIRsharing Registry: Connecting data policies, standards and databases RDA working group)

Chris Graf, Stakeholder Advisor 

Sowmya Swaminathan, 

Data publishing

Through data publishing, we aim to make scientific data more reusable, discoverable, interpretable, and citable.

We facilitate data publishing in open access journals Scientific Data and BMC Research Notes; through Registered Reports in BMC journals; and pilot projects on data citation and data badges.

PÕ¾ÊÓƵ’s flagship open data journal, , offers authors the opportunity to describe and share their research data with a wide audience. 

publishes dark data - single observations,
short null results, orphan data and confirmatory results. The
‘data note’ article type offers authors a peer-reviewed, citeable
summary of their data.

Our Research Data Helpdesk helps authors and editors find out how best to deal with their data and understand funder and institute mandates. With journal-level Research Data Policies, we ensure that the data at the heart of scholarly research are appropriately archived and, where possible, widely accessible.

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