When you deposit your data in a repository and link it to your research article, it can be found, accessed and reused by researchers in different institutions, different regions, and even different disciplines. There are obvious benefits to science when researchers share data - but what specific benefits can you expect? 

Here are five ways sharing your research data could help enhance your career.

1. More citations of your published research articles

When you share the dataset that underpins your article, it’s not just the article that might be reused or cited; data sharing is also associated with an increase in citations to your research article of up to 25%.*

2. Greater discoverability and enhanced visibility

Sharing data in a repository makes it visible, and easily found by researchers other than those reading the journal you’ve published in. Data repositories are increasingly searchable on Google and indexed in resources like Google Dataset Search. The metadata you add to your data’s repository record helps others to understand how it was generated and what it consists of.

3. Get credit for your work and gain recognition

Not content with just increased citations of your article? More and more journals allow authors to cite datasets in reference lists, so if someone reuses your data, you get an additional citation for it.

4. New opportunities for collaboration

When your data can be easily found, other researchers can reuse it; or they may wish to work with you collaboratively to build on the data you’ve already shared.

5. Improve the veracity, robustness and reproducibility of your results

Science is in the midst of a reproducibility crisis, and many researchers report that they can’t reproduce others’ research (or even their own) .** Sharing data openly can encourage studies which replicate studies, and allow others to test the validity of your results.

How to get started with research data sharing

Want to try data sharing? Here are three simple ways to start sharing your research data, from writing a data availability statement, to finding a data repository for your discipline.   

Do you have a question about research data? 

Get free help and advice on sharing your research data: visit our research data help desk.

*Colavizza et al. (2020)

** www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970

Photo by Tomasz Frankowski on Unsplash