Interviews of incentives for sharing research data

A collection of 22 interviews with researchers in 5 European countries on their data sharing practices, their motivations to share research data, what incentivises them to share research data, and their views on how data sharing can be incentivised further..

The aim of this study was to provide evidence and examples of useful incentives for data sharing from the researchers' point of view, to inform scientists and policy makers. The study involved five research teams with an established data sharing culture in partner countries of Knowledge Exchange (Finland, Denmark, Germany, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands), and spans various academic disciplines (arts and humanities, social sciences, biomedicine, chemistry and biology).

This study's aims were to:

1. identify official but especially also yet unknown or unofficial incentives of researchers for making data available with a focus on the values and intrinsic motivations of the individual as well as on the interactions within research teams and in the larger research community

2. analyse existing and possible future benefits for researchers sharing their data

3. investigate the influence of existing policies on the practice of data sharing throughout the whole lifecycle of the research process as well as the influence of existing institutions and infrastructures offering support services for data sharing

4. consider the whole research lifecycle and classify the most efficient moments in the research process for incentivising data sharing

5. provide recommendations for policy development regarding the incentivising of data access and reuse.