The Public Domain of Digital Research Data

OECD Follow-up Group on Issues of Access to Publicly Funded Research Data

Group and Background Information

Science
Policy View

Goal
of the Project

Members

Preliminary
Results

Interim
Report

Publications
and
Reports

Home

At the beginning of the twenty-first century our global society is going through tremendous changes, driven in large part by scientific and technological advances, enabled in large part by information and communications technologies (ICT). Public investments in ICT infrastructure, most notably the Internet and associated software that have created national and global grids, have made possible large-scale and global scientific projects. Building on these investments, research data that are being produced and used in cross-national networked environments, scientific communities and organizations are indispensable to addressing the important questions of scientific and societal concern.

Yet, providing access to research data-the lifeblood of the scientific enterprise-often seems to lag behind the investments in the infrastructure that produces such data. Consequently, there is the risk that the return on investments and the scientific work enabled by these newly developed infrastructures and valuable public information resources is sub-optimal. Furthermore, some of the larger issues of society, such as national security, individual privacy, and intellectual property rights that are now being re-examined in the light of the ICT revolution, have their impact on access to research data. Inadequate or inconsistent policies on access to research data can conflict with two key governmental responsibilities:

- good stewardship of public goods and
- the creation of value-chains to leverage prior investments.

Research data that are produced by government investments in technology and science at taxpayer expense are valuable public resources essential to the work of science, and important to the economy and society. The most economically efficient, innovative, and productive uses of the public investments in science and technology in many cases will require more appropriate and consistent policies on access to publicly funded research data.Recognizing the need for a closer look at data access issues, the OECD follow up group on issues of access to publicly funded research data has been organized to assemble a collection of best practices of data sharing and access in the scientific context, create a set of principles useful in policy considerations in this area, and consider implementations to recommended policies.For more information about the group, the science policy view, the goal of the project, and preliminary results and upcoming activities, see http://dataaccess.ucsd.edu/, or send e-mail to parzberg@ucsd.edu.

Participants from the United States were supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation through Grant ACI-9619020, co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering, the Divisions of Advanced Computational Infrastructure and Research, Biological Infrastructure, Social and Economic Sciences, and the Directorate for Math and Physical Sciences. NSF support helped to coordinate the group's activities and to develop a series of case studies to explore data access issues.

Additional support for the group's activities came from Netherlands' Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, CODATA, and governments and agencies of the members. The European Science Foundation is a partner in this activity.