Legal Status of Research Data in the four partner countries

This report compares the legal status of research data in the four KE partner countries. The report also addresses where European copyright and database law poses flaws and obstacles to the access to research data and singles out pre-conditions for openly available data. Background of the study Intellectual property right regulations regarding primary research data are a recurrent topic in the discussion on the improvement of access to research data. In fact in the final report of the High Level Expert Group on Scientific Data ‘Riding the Wave’ creating clarity on this was considered very important in improving awareness for all parties involved. According to the recommendations of the report legal issues should be “worked out so that they encourage, and not impede, global data sharing” http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/e-infrastructure/docs/hlg-sdi-report.pdf. While open access to research data is a widely recognised goal, achieving it remains a challenge. As European national laws still diverge and sometimes remain unclear it can be difficult for interested parties to fully comprehend in which ways open access to research data can be legally obtained. Based on these discussions the Knowledge Exchange working group on primary research data has commissioned a comparative report on the legal status of research data in the four KE partner countries. The study has been conducted by the Centre for Intellectual Property Law (CIER) at Utrecht University. The report aims at informing Knowledge Exchange and associated stakeholders on the state of the law concerning access to research data in the KE partner countries (Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) and to give an insight in how these laws work in practice. This is explained in several characteristic situations pertaining to open access to research data. The purpose of the report is to identify flaws and obstacles to the access to research data and to single out pre-conditions for openly available data. This is in view of the current discussions concerning open access to research data, especially those originating from publicly funded research. The report intends to be both a description of the status quo of the legislation and a practical instrument to prepare further activities in raising awareness on the potential benefit of improved access to research data, and developing means to support the improved access for research purposes

KE Workshop Report - Main Drivers for Successful re-use of Research Data

On 23-24 September 2009 an international discussion workshop on “Main Drivers for Successful Re-Use of Research Data” was held in Berlin, prepared and organised by the Knowledge Exchange working group on Primary Research Data. The main focus of the workshop was on the benefits, challenges and obstacles of re-using data from a researcher’s perspective. The use cases presented by researchers from a variety of disciplines were supplemented by two key notes and selected presentations by specialists from infrastructure institutions, publishers, and funding bodies on national and European level. Researchers' perspectives The workshop provided a critical evaluation of what lessons have been learned on sharing and re-using research data from a researcher’s perspective and what actions might be taken on to still improve the successful re-use. Despite the individual differences characterising the diverse disciplines it became clear that important issues are comparable. Combine forces to support re-use and sharing of data Apart from several technical challenges such as metadata exchange standards and quality assurance it was obvious that the most important obstacles to re-using research data more efficiently are socially determined. It was agreed that in order to overcome this problem more efforts should be made to rise awareness and combine forces to support re-using and sharing of research data on all levels (researchers, institutions, publishers, funders, governments).