NASEM Workshop Explores Culture of Data Management and Sharing

By: Yvette Seger
Thursday, May 6, 2021

On April 28 – 29, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) hosted a workshop to explore the opportunities and challenges for researchers, institutions, and funders in establishing strategies to promote effective data management and sharing. Sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the workshop also sought to assess stakeholder preparedness for implementation of the agency’s final policy for data management and sharing beginning in January 2023.

A key challenge cited throughout the two-day workshop is balancing the perception of data management and sharing as compliance versus a way to expand scientific reach. This will require culture change across the scientific enterprise. It will also require resources – financial, physical, and technical.

Panels over the two days addressed a range of topics and factors that can enhance or serve as barriers to data sharing, including data type, format, and accessibility. There was also extensive discussion regarding the need to balance mandates, such as the NIH policy, with incentives to foster the desired data sharing ecosystem. Examples from private funders and discipline-specific networks highlighted incremental steps that have fostered culture change and investigators’ earlier consideration of options for data sharing and reuse.

The majority of workshop materials, including background materials and presenter slides are posted here. The archived recordings will be posted in approximately two weeks.