Research data life cycle

Sharing

In the era of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) and Open science, datasets should be made available to the public. Whenever possible, discipline-specific repositories (with or without controlled access) should be used in order to increase the FAIRness of your research outputs. If no such repository is available, there are general-purpose repositories.

Learn more about the FAIR principles

Learn more about Open science

Finding a suitable repository type


Repository overview

  

Does your data contain personal or sensitive information that cannot be fully anonymised?

There may be cases where openly sharing data is not feasible due to ethical or confidentiality considerations. Depending on what the ethical board approving your study said about data sharing, and the level of permission granted from participants, it may still be possible to make your data accessible to authenticated users via a controlled-access repository.

See more guidelines on sharing human data

Is there a discipline specific repository for your dataset?

Research data differs greatly across disciplines. Discipline-specific repositories offer specialist domain knowledge and curation expertise for particular data types. Using a discipline-specific repository makes your data visible to others in your community.

Does your institutional repository accept data?

Many institutions offer support to their employees for managing and depositing data. Institutional repositories that accept datasets provide stewardship, helping to ensure that your dataset is preserved and accessible.

Answered no on all questions above?

General-purpose data repositories accept datasets regardless of discipline or institution. These repositories support a wide variety of file types and are particularly useful where a discipline-specific repository does not exist.

There are several repositories for life science data types, please find links below to our Data type guide for a selection of the ELIXIR Deposition databases. For other discipline-specific repositories, the EBI repositor wizard can assist in finding the right repository depending on data type, and FAIRsharing.org provides a global registry of repositories.

Guidance on where to publish COVID-19 and Pandemic Preparedness research data, can be found on the Swedish Pathogens Portal.

Genomics

Proteomics

Metabolomics and Exposomics

Spatial Omics

Cellular and Molecular Imaging

Structural Biology

Institutional repositories

For datasets that do not fit into discipline-specific repositories, it is recommended to use an institutional repository if available. These repositories are often general-purpose repositories with the intention of only being used by researchers at that specific institution. See below a selection of available repositories offered by Swedish academic institutions operating in the life sciences.

KI Data Repository is a data repository where Karolinska Institutet's (KI's) researchers can store, publish and share data.
Visit KI Data Repository
The KTH Data Repository is a general data repository offered as a service from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The service offers a solution for depositing and preparing documentation and static versions of data and source code for your research project. Deposited data can be kept for internal archive or published as open data.
Visit KTH Data Repository
The KTH Royal Institute of Technology Zenodo community is the official community for all researcher's at KTH Royal Institute of Technology who wants to deposit open research output via Zenodo, get support on the description and findability of data by the research data team and obtain a DOI for that public research output.
Visit KTH Zenodo community
The SciLifeLab Data Repository, powered by Figshare and supported by SciLifeLab and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation through the Data-Driven Life Science (DDLS) program, is a repository for publishing any kind of research-related data, e.g. documents, figures, or presentations. Figshare is an open data repository used by researchers in numerous disciplines. Through an agreement with Figshare, SciLifeLab offers researchers and units the opportunity to upload and publish their research data through a dedicated portal.
Visit SciLifeLab Data Repository
Stockholm University Figshare is a repository for publishing any kind of research-related data, e.g. documents, figures, or presentations. Figshare is an open data repository used by researchers in numerous disciplines. Through an agreement with Figshare, Stockholm University offers researchers the opportunity to upload and publish their research data through a dedicated portal.
Visit Stockholm University Figshare

General-purpose data repositories

A general-purpose data repository is an appropriate choice only if the data does not need to be published in a controlled-access repository, a discipline-specific repository does not exist for the discipline and if there are no institutional repositories available. See below a selection of general-purpose data repositories.

In DORIS (the Swedish National Data Service's (SND) Data Organisation and Information System) you can describe and share research data from all disciplines. By using DORIS, well-documented data are shared in a way that fulfils the FAIR principles.
Visit DORIS
Figshare is an open data, general-purpose, repository used by researchers in numerous disciplines. It can be used for sharing basically any kind of data, but also for just describing data stored elsewhere.
Visit Figshare
Zenodo is an open data, general-purpose, repository operated by CERN. It can be used for sharing basically any kind of data, but also for just describing data stored elsewhere. Zenodo doesn't enforce standardised descriptions of data, so datasets described there might be more difficult to find than those described in the two repositories mentioned above.
Visit Zenodo
B2SHARE is a user-friendly, reliable and trustworthy way for researchers, scientific communities and citizen scientists to store, publish and share research data in a FAIR way. B2SHARE is a solution that facilitates research data storage, guarantees long-term persistence of data and allows data, results or ideas to be shared worldwide.
Visit EUDAT B2SHARE

How can SciLifeLab help you sharing data?

If you are a researcher at a Swedish academic institution operating in the life sciences, you can get help from SciLifeLab Data Management support team. This support team can help you describe and deposit your data. Here are a few examples of the support that is offered:

  • Plan data submission
  • Identify suitable repositories
  • Assist during the submission process when publishing data and code
  • Assist in the creation of metadata records in SciLifeLab Data Repository
  • Advice on what needs to be done when working with sensitive human data
  • Advice on describing data with proper metadata

If you need any help connected to data submission, please contact us by emailing data-management@scilifelab.se.

Resources

Please find below resources concerning the research data life cycle phase share in form of training, guidance and/or tools.

Training resources

Guiding resources

Tools