Principles of data management and sharing at European Research Infrastructures

Under the umbrella of the BioMedBridges project, fourteen research infrastructures in the biological, biomedical and environmental sciences developed commonly agreed principles of data management and sharing. The document makes key recommendations on how data management and sharing via the research infrastructures can be supported and encouraged:

1. The RIs encourage data sharing and reuse and support the notion that public funders should encourage Open Access to data from publicly funded research where possible.
2. Some data may only be shared under certain conditions and with appropriate safekeeping mechanisms in place, such as personally identifiable data, data subject to ethical or legal restrictions, or restrictions for intellectual property protection.
3. To encourage data sharing, systematic reward and recognition mechanisms are necessary.
4. Proposals for publicly funded research at RIs should include a data management plan concerning the deposition of data in long-term archives that addresses specific resources and activities (including standardisation of data production and curation/annotation).
5. Funding for tools and activities connected to data deposition must be available.
6. Systems, services and resources must be in place to facilitate straightforward data deposition by researchers, including support concerning the necessary data use agreements and consent forms for data with data protection or intellectual property requirements.
7. Systems are also needed to capture and track data provenance and use.
8. To ensure necessary trust by data providers or depositors, RIs must guarantee high standards of security and traceability.