The State of Open Data 2022

Decision factors and motivations

• Some of the top motivators for data sharing are related to article publication. Researchers are more inclined to share their research data where it can have an impact on citations (67%) and the visibility of their research (61%), rather than being motivated by public benefit or journal/publisher mandate (both 56%).

Making data openly available

• 4 out of every five researchers are in favour of data being made openly available as common practice, supported somewhat by now over 70% of respondents being required to follow a policy on data sharing for their most recent piece of research.
• However, more training or information on policies for access, sharing and reuse was cited as a key requirement in helping researchers to share their data (55%) as well as long-term storage and data management strategies (52%).

Building supportive communities

• 72% of respondents said they would rely on an internal resource for help with managing or making their data openly available. Furthermore, when asked who they would be willing to receive support from, the most popular answer was publishers (41%) closely followed by those within their own institution (38%).
• 75% of authors indicate they receive too little credit for data sharing. However, of those who had previously shared data, 66% had received some form of recognition for their efforts – most commonly via full citation in another article (41%) followed by co-authorship on a paper that had used the data.

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