Simplifying Research Data Policy Across Journals

Author: Penny Freedman

Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Head of Data Publishing at Springer Nature shares news of new company-wide Springer Nature Research Data

As an author you want to publish your best work, and sharing your research data often goes hand-in-hand with that. But there isn’t one clear blueprint on the best practices and policies on sharing journal research data. When we reviewed the landscape of journals’ research data policies we learned that it can be quite confusing with structures ranging from partial or full policies, to no policy at all.

As a result, Springer Nature is implementing a new set of policies across all of our journals. Four policy types have been created, which will be implemented publication-by-publication.

“We want to enable authors to publish visible and reproducible research, to help them gain credit for sharing their data where possible, and to help them comply with funder requirements to archive data.”
Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Head of Data Publishing

The policies will enable all journals and research communities to begin or continue their research data sharing journey in a way that reflects their communities’ needs, within a more consistent and understandable framework. They will clarify what the expectations are for you as an author when it comes to sharing your research data. They also take into account policy mandates that require data archiving as a condition of grants.

This is just the beginning, and already nearly 350 journals have aligned their policies with this new framework. We will be working with the editors of all Springer Nature research journals over the coming months to align research data policies. Data policy will be clearly displayed on journals’ landing pages, manuscript submission systems, and collated on our Research Data Policy website.

When you publish in a Springer Nature journal, as an author you will benefit from the support of a publisher that wants to help make your research data more visible and re-usable, and help you gain more credit for sharing your work. This includes:

• Detailed information on the data policy of the journal
• Help identifying suitable data repositories
• Compliance with funders’ and institutions’ data sharing policies
• Advice on linking your data to publications where possible

Learn more in the full announcement introducing the standardized research data policies from our Data Policies and Services group.