General Principles
Science Insights recognizes that access to appropriate research data can support verification, reproducibility, further research and confidence in published findings.
Authors are encouraged to preserve and share the data necessary to understand and support the findings reported in their articles, where such sharing is appropriate and permitted.
Data sharing must be conducted responsibly. Requirements relating to privacy, informed consent, confidentiality, intellectual property, contractual obligations, research ethics and applicable law take precedence where unrestricted public sharing would be inappropriate.
Research Data
Research data may include information, observations, measurements, records or other materials generated or collected during research and used to support the findings presented in a manuscript.
Depending on the nature of the research, relevant materials may include numerical datasets, experimental observations, survey data, analytical outputs, images, recordings, code, protocols or other materials necessary to understand or verify the reported results.
Not every research output can or should be made publicly available. The nature of the data and any applicable ethical, legal or contractual restrictions should be considered when determining an appropriate method of access.
Data Availability
Where appropriate, authors are encouraged to make the data supporting the principal findings of an article available to readers and other researchers.
Data may be made available through a recognized repository, as supplementary material, through an appropriate institutional platform or by another suitable method consistent with the nature of the research.
Where data cannot be shared publicly, authors should explain the reason for the restriction and, where possible, indicate whether access may be provided under specified conditions.
Data Availability Statement
Journals published by Science Insights may require authors to provide a data availability statement describing whether and how the data supporting the reported findings can be accessed.
A data availability statement should accurately reflect the circumstances of the research. Where data are publicly available, the statement should provide sufficient information to locate them.
Where data are subject to restrictions, the statement should describe the nature of those restrictions where this can be done without compromising confidentiality, privacy or other protected information.
Where no new data were generated or analysed, a statement indicating this may be appropriate, depending on the nature of the article.
Data Repositories
Where research data can appropriately be made public, authors are encouraged to use a suitable repository that supports preservation, access and persistent identification of deposited materials.
Discipline-specific repositories should generally be considered where established repositories exist for the relevant type of research. Institutional or general-purpose repositories may also be appropriate where no suitable disciplinary repository is available.
Authors are responsible for ensuring that any data deposited in a repository may lawfully and ethically be shared through that service.
Data Citation
Publicly available datasets that are important to the research should be identified clearly and cited where appropriate.
Where a dataset has a persistent identifier, such as a DOI or another stable identifier, authors should provide it where relevant to facilitate discovery and long-term access.
Authors should give appropriate credit to data created by other researchers and should comply with applicable terms of use, licences and citation requirements.
Restrictions on Data Sharing
Science Insights does not require authors to make data publicly available where doing so would violate ethical, legal, privacy, confidentiality, contractual, security or legitimate intellectual property requirements.
Where unrestricted sharing is not possible, authors should consider whether anonymized, de-identified, aggregated or controlled-access data can appropriately be made available.
Restrictions should not be used merely to prevent legitimate scrutiny of research findings. Where data access is restricted, authors should provide an appropriate explanation where possible.
Human Participant Data
Data relating to human participants must be handled in accordance with applicable ethical approvals, informed consent, privacy requirements and relevant legal or institutional obligations.
Authors should not publicly disclose information that could identify individual participants unless appropriate consent and other necessary permissions permit such disclosure.
De-identification or anonymization should be undertaken appropriately where required, while recognizing that some datasets may remain potentially identifiable even after direct identifiers have been removed.
Third-Party Data
Authors may use data obtained from third parties where they have appropriate permission, licence or other lawful authority to do so.
Authors should not publicly redistribute third-party data where they do not have the right to make those data available.
Where third-party restrictions prevent direct sharing, authors should provide sufficient information about the original data source and, where possible, explain how eligible researchers may obtain access from the responsible provider.
Data Available on Request
Where repository-based public sharing is not appropriate, authors may state that relevant data are available from the corresponding author or another responsible source upon reasonable request, provided that such access is consistent with ethical, legal and contractual requirements.
A statement that data are available on request should be made in good faith. Authors should respond appropriately to legitimate requests and should not impose arbitrary barriers to access where they have represented that the data are available.
Requests may nevertheless be subject to reasonable conditions necessary to protect participant privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property or other legitimate interests.
Editorial Verification
During editorial assessment or peer review, authors may be asked to provide underlying data or other relevant research materials where these are necessary to clarify significant questions about the manuscript or verify reported findings.
Such requests do not necessarily mean that the material will be made publicly available. Data supplied for editorial assessment will be handled according to applicable confidentiality and editorial requirements.
An inability to provide relevant underlying data may affect editorial consideration where the data are necessary to assess the reliability or integrity of the reported work.
Data Retention
Authors should preserve research data and relevant records for an appropriate period consistent with applicable disciplinary standards, institutional requirements, funder requirements and legal or ethical obligations.
Research records should be maintained in a manner that allows significant questions concerning the work to be addressed where reasonably possible.
Science Insights does not prescribe a single universal retention period because appropriate retention requirements may vary by research field, institution, jurisdiction and type of data.
Post-Publication Data Concerns
Questions concerning the availability, accuracy or integrity of data may arise after publication. Authors are expected to cooperate with reasonable editorial enquiries concerning data underlying their published work.
Where significant concerns about data integrity cannot be resolved, the matter may be considered under the Research Integrity and Misconduct Policy .
Where an amendment to the published record is necessary, appropriate action may be taken in accordance with the Corrections and Retractions Policy .