Writing a data availability statement for your paper

Increasingly, journals require authors to include a data availability statement as part of their published paper. But what is it, and what should it include?
Published in Research Data
Writing a data availability statement for your paper
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What is a data availability statement?

Your data availability statement is a short paragraph or two which tells readers how the data supporting the results reported in your paper can be accessed. 

What should the data availability statement include?

You don’t need to use a certain format or template to write a data availability statement. The statement should describe all of the data which underpin your article, and how and where they can be accessed. 

If your data are in a repository, you should include the name of the repository, hyperlinks and persistent identifiers for the datasets as part of your data availability statement.

You can also add information about any restrictions for data access. For example if your data cannot be shared openly to protect study participant privacy, then this can be explained in the data availability statement. 

See our data availability statement resource page for more information on writing data availability statements, and examples you can adapt for your own data.

Do you have a question about research data? 
Get free help and advice on sharing your research data: visit our research data help desk.

Photograph by Ashley Edwards on Unsplash.

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