13 February 2019
A new pilot project by Springer Nature and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) will enable researchers to make their research datasets accessible alongside their published articles. From February 2019, all authors whose manuscripts are accepted for publication by npj Breast Cancer will be reviewed by a research data editor who is responsible for cataloguing, describing and sharing the datasets that accompany the research paper.
The editors, who work as part of Springer Nature’s Research Data Support services team, will help authors draft detailed descriptions of the datasets supporting their articles and deposit datasets in a newly-created journal data repository. They will also give advice on de-identifying data about human research participants, and help authors write detailed data availability statements.
This pilot is expected to run for most of 2019 and is part of an ongoing collaboration between Springer Nature and BCRF to promote robust, long-term access to research data.