Data repositories

In order to ensure that research data is available and used by as many people as possible, datasets should be made available to suitable Data Repositories.

Identifying funder requirements and data repositories

As a prerequisite of funding, many Funding Councils require that Research Data be deposited (or made available for deposit) within a predefined repository. Check individual funder requirements for specific details. SHERPA/JULIET, hosted by the University of Nottingham, runs a service which lists funders' rules and if they have a requirement for authors to use a particular repository.

General-purpose repositories

If your funder doesn't have a suitable specialised repository, we recommend one or more of the following repositories:

  • Zenodo - An open access data, software and publication repository for researchers who want to share multidisciplinary research results not available in other repositories. It was developed by and is hosted at CERN, but is suitable for all types of research data. It is free to use and has guaranteed funding from the EU for the foreseeable future.
  • FigShare - Allows researchers to post their all their data, with the aim of reducing replicating research data unnecessarily. It is free to use and owned by Macmillan Group.
  • Dryad - 'An international repository of data underlying peer-reviewed articles in the basic and applied biosciences'. It is supported by a consortium of journals and publishers such as Oxford University Press, Ecology Letters and BioMed Central. A small charge per deposit is payable.
  • UK Data Service - Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to provide access to relevant data.
  • The Council of European Social Science Data Archives - Social science data archives across Europe.

 

Subject/Disciplinary Repositories

Data repositories are also available for specific subject domains and disciplines. Common subject repositories are listed below. 

  • DRYAD - Open repository for evolutionary biology and other life science subjects
  • FigShare - Commercial repository that allows assignment of DOIs to datasets. Free account allows deposits up to 20GB. 
  • European Nucleotide Archive - Repository hosting deposits annotated DNA and RNA sequences.
  • GenBank - NIH genetic sequence database. 
  • Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank -  Repository for data from NMR Spectroscopy on Proteins, Peptides, Nucleic Acids, and other Biomolecules.
  • Springer Nature - List of subject-specific repositories. 

 

Additional Resources

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