Data sharing is key to realize the promises of big data driven research. Data sharing warrants data availability and reproducibility of research results, efficiency, quality, as well as statistical significance and pace. It allows for new research uses of existing data and encourages new research collaborations. However, even though the importance of data sharing is widely recognized by researchers, data sharing is still not common practice.

The joint research project DATABLIC is focused on the question of how public funders could and should design their funding policies and grant conditions in order to get funded scientists to share their data in a systematic and reliable way with the scientific community. How is it possible to ascertain that “raw”-data and sufficient information about tools of analysis and methods be made accessible and usable? And how can policies respect the (legitimate) interests of different stakeholder? The aim of the project is to develop practical policy recommendations for public funders (in Germany).

The joint research project DATABLIC is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) via the program „Forschung zu ethischen, rechtlichen und sozialen Aspekten (ELSA) der Digitalisierung, von Big Data und Künstlicher Intelligenz in der Gesundheitsforschung und -versorgung“ (Research on Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Digitization, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence in Health Research).

The project brings together four disciplines – ethics, social sciences, law, and behavioural economics – that are dedicated to four sub-projects.

The goal is the dissemination of recommendations for data sharing policies of German public funding agencies.

Project Speaker: Dr. Christoph Schickhardt