2. Mandates for Data Sharing

Mandates for Journals

Researchers ought to check the data sharing policies in the instructions for authors at the journal they are submitting to. Some journals have explicit mandates that require data sharing or data sharing statements. A quick view of the BMJ Open data sharing policy can be see below.

bmj open data policy

Mandates for Funders

Funders are increasingly developing policies and mandates pertaining to data sharing. Central among academic federal funder policies in Canada is the recently announced Tri Agency Data Management policy. This policy will have phased requirements to help facilitate the Canadian research landscape towards implementing sound data management and sharing practices.

It complements previously existing Tri-Agency policies related to data sharing such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) policy on data sharing for bioinformatics, atomic and molecular coordinates, gene sequences.

SHERPA Juliet

You can learn more about specific funders’ data sharing policies by searching their website or by using SHERPA Juliet, which can be used to search funders’ data archiving policies. Visit their search page where you can enter a name or acronym of a funder to view its Open Access policies. For example, in the figure below, you can see Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) data archiving policies.