Perspectives on the importance of best practices to incentivize data sharing and data recognition - Make Data Count

"It will be important to have examples of success to incentivize data sharing and use practices, especially examples of datasets that have been heavily reused. It would also be useful if we can find examples in as many fields as possible where data sharing and data use led to recognition. As part of the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF), researchers are already invited to note if they have shared their data, it would be useful if they were also prompted to provide evidence that the data was reused, which would demonstrate that their research has had extra value. Showcasing examples of data use evidence would serve as an incentive to others. One of the goals of the REF is to encourage diversity, this also involves diversity in outputs – i.e. you don’t have to only write journal articles, you can write books or software, make a website, or even stage a play. If you do anything research-related well, then you can claim credit for it. That’s the ethos for it and data should be part of it."