Why should I deposit data?
There are a variety of reasons why you may need to deposit data at the NERC Environmental Data Service.
Meeting legal/funder/journal requirements
It is NERC’s data policy that all environmental data of long-term value generated through NERC-funded activities must be offered to NERC for long-term management and dissemination and will be made openly available for others to use. Depositing data will also help to fulfil publishers’ requirements regarding access and citation of data underpinning research papers. Depositing with a NERC Data Centre will ensure that sensitive data is handled in compliance with all relevant ethical and legal requirements. Deposited resources will be kept in a manner that is compliant with any legal and regulatory obligations and made available to others in line with appropriate ethical, data sharing and open access principles, especially where data underpins published research
Ensuring research integrity and preserving your scientific reputation
Research data form the raw fuel of science. Preserving the data underpinning research ensures transparency in the research process and is fundamental to maintaining the integrity of outputs and scientific reputation.
Maximising impact and value of data
Much research data is unique and cannot be replaced if destroyed or lost. The academic and economic value and impact of research data is maximised when it is curated appropriately because deposited data will be appropriately identifiable, retrievable, and available when needed. The data will be stored securely and preserved in order to ensure its continued reusability and made available to others.
Obtaining credit for data
The licence under which the data are made available will require users to cite the dataset. The discovery metadata record for each deposited resource will include details of how to credit the authors of the data when the dataset is cited. These citations can be used by researchers to credit their work, in a similar way paper citations are used by the research community.
Still unsure if your data is worthy of archiving?
The NERC Data Value Checklist is an excellent and quick series of questions to help evaluate any data to see if they should be archived.