Research data policy

At Springer Nature we advance discovery by publishing trusted research, supporting the development of new ideas and championing open science. We also aim to facilitate compliance with research funder and institution requirements to share data.

To help accomplish this we have established a standard research data policy for our journals, based on transparency around supporting data. This policy applies to all datasets that are necessary to interpret and replicate the conclusions reported in a research article.

1. All original articles must include a data availability statement

Data availability statements should include information on what data are available, where these can be found, and any applicable access terms. This applies to both original and reused data, and whether or not data can be shared publicly. See our guidance on data availability statements for more information.

2. We strongly encourage that all datasets supporting the analysis and conclusions of the paper are made publicly available at the time of publication, and we mandate the sharing of community-endorsed data types

We encourage authors to deposit their supporting data in publicly available repositories, or failing this within the manuscript or additional supporting files. See our repository guidance for more information.

A submission to a Springer Nature journal implies that all relevant raw data will be made freely available to any researcher wishing to use them, without breaching participant confidentiality.

For a number of data types, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory. See our list of mandated data types.

3. Peer reviewers are entitled to request access to underlying data (and code) when needed to perform their evaluation of a manuscript.

4. We recognise it is not always possible to share research data publicly, for instance when privacy of research participants could be compromised. In such instances data availability should still be stated in the manuscript along with any conditions for access.

A large number of our journals already support this policy, including Nature Portfolio, BMC and many Springer and Palgrave titles. We are in the process of implementing this policy across the remainder of our portfolio in stages.

For information on a journal’s specific policies, please consult the journal submission guidelines.