Can a bold ‘social contract’ make data sharing more palatable?

"Many Africa-based researchers seem to prefer sharing data informally with trusted peers or as part of projects or collaborations on grant applications, rather than securing them formally from a repository4–7. For example, data from 23,421 biological samples collected across 16 H3Africa studies can be accessed through requests to a data and biospecimen access committee. But, according to one study4, the committee received just 28 data-access requests between December 2018 and June 2023, of which only 6 came from Africa. Of the remainder, 20 were from the United States, United Kingdom and Europe combined, one came from Asia and one from South America.

Here, we set out how such data hoarding can be combated by developing a ‘social contract’ for responsible data stewardship. This will require building up trust between researchers, commercial partners, governments, funders and the public by providing guarantees that data will be used in the best interests of African researchers, communities and research participants."