To fee or not to fee: Charging for deposit to research data repositories

"As a part of our investigation into what might constitute “Reasonable Costs” for Public Access to US Federally Funded Research and Scientific Data, we are examining what is known about the costs to service providers (publishers, repositories, etc.) for providing those services, and what is known about the prices researchers are charged to provide public access to research. For research data, the pathways to publication are diverse and may include submission and deposit in various types of repositories (disciplinary, institutional, etc), publication as supplements to research papers or as data papers, and the development of bespoke solutions. Because the 2022 OSTP memo “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research” (PDF) directs federal funding agencies to recommend or require that researchers use existing and appropriate online repositories, we focus this investigation on prices (or fees; we use these terms interchangeably) researchers are charged to deposit data to repositories...."