Data Access Statements

Data access statements (sometimes called “data availability statements”) are used in publications to describe where supporting research data (including code, images, sounds, textual records, objects, etc.) can be found and under what conditions they can be accessed.

UKRI and some other funders and publishers require papers to include a Data Access Statement, even where there are no data associated with the publication, or the data are inaccessible.

Your journal’s or publisher’s guidance for authors should indicate the format and placement of a data access statement. If no ‘Data access’ or ‘Data availability’ section is specified, we suggest placing your statement in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section.

We also recommend that you include a full citation to the data in your main references list.

What to include in a data access statement

Data access statements should typically include the following information (and examples are provided in the next section, below):

where the data can be accessed (preferably a data repository);
a unique persistent identifier, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or accession number, or a link to a permanent record for the data;
details of any restrictions on accessing the data and a justifiable explanation (e.g. for legal, ethical or commercial reasons).

Please note, a direction to contact the author for access to data would not normally be considered acceptable by some funders and publishers. The EPSRC has made this explicit. Consider setting up a shared email address for your research group or use an existing departmental address.

Example data access statements

The following are examples of data access statements covering a variety of scenarios.

Openly available data

All data supporting this study are provided in full in the ‘Results’ section of this paper.
All data supporting this study are provided as supplementary information accompanying this paper at [insert DOI].
The data supporting the findings reported in this paper are openly available from the [insert name of repository] repository at [insert DOI].
This publication is supported by multiple datasets which are openly available at locations cited in the ‘References’ section of this paper.

Secondary analysis of existing data

This study is a re-analysis of existing data which are openly available at locations cited in the ‘References’ section of this paper. Further documentation about data processing are openly available from the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI].
This study brought together existing research data obtained upon request and subject to licence restrictions from a number of different sources. Full details of how these data were obtained are available in the documentation available at the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI].

Ethical constraints

Due to ethical concerns, supporting data cannot be made openly available. Further information about the data and conditions for access are available from the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI].
Anonymised interview transcripts from participants who consented to data sharing, plus other supporting information, are available from the UK Data Service, subject to registration at [insert DOI].
Supporting data are available to bona fide researchers, subject to registration, from the UK Data Service at [insert DOI].
Due to the [insert appropriate term: ethically, politically, commercially] sensitive nature of the research, no participants consented to their data being retained or shared. Further information about the data are available from the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI].
Processed, qualitative data from this study is available from the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI]. Additional raw data related to this publication cannot be openly released; the raw data contains transcripts of interviews, but none of the interviewees consented to data sharing.

Commercial constraints

Data supporting this paper will be available from the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI] after a six-month embargo period from the date of publication to allow for commercialisation of research findings.
Due to confidentiality agreements with research collaborators, data supporting this paper can only be made available to bona fide researchers subject to a non-disclosure agreement. Details of the data and how to request access are available from the [insert name of repository] repository at [insert DOI].

Cost-effective sharing of data

This paper is accompanied by a representative sample of experimental data which is available from the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI]. Detailed procedures explaining how this representative sample was selected, and how this experiment can be repeated, are provided in the ‘Materials and Methods’ section of this paper. Additional raw data underlying this paper contain [insert relevant number] additional images. These additional images are not shared online due to size of the images ([insert relevant number]GB/image); public sharing of these images is not cost-effective, and the experiment can be easily reproduced.

Non-digital data

Non-digital data supporting this study are stored by the corresponding author at [insert name of institution]. Details of how to request access to these data are available from the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI].

No data created or analysed

No data were created or analysed in this study.

Data not available due to [ethical/legal/commercial] restrictions

Due to the [insert appropriate term: ethically, politically, commercially] sensitive nature of the research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.