Institutional barriers and good practice solutions

Open access to research data provides many benefits to science and society, but as the open access trend grows it becomes increasingly clear that providing unrestricted access to research data is not inherently a “good thing”, and it is certainly not easy to achieve. The RECODE project looks at the grand challenges associated with open access and data preservation and dissemination, including technological and infrastructural, legal and ethical, and institutional and policy issues. In particular, it seeks to understand and use the fragmentation between and within disciplines in order to address these challenges. The aim is to produce policy recommendations for open access to research data, based on existing good practice. In this fourth RECODE deliverable we focus on the challenges faced by institutions, such as archives, libraries, universities, data centres and funding bodies, in making open access to research data possible. Policy makers and the scientific community expect these institutions to play an important role in creating and funding data sharing infrastructures and stimulating and assisting researchers to make their research material public. They look towards these institutions to curate and preserve information, and provide guidance to researchers in managing their data