Who Will Keep Research Data Infrastructure Open and Running?

"The global research enterprise relies on information infrastructure to power scientific discovery, medical breakthroughs, and evidence-based policymaking. But the data repositories, digital asset management services, and preservation systems that ensure research data remains open and accessible are often overlooked—until they disappear. Many of these tools and services are vulnerable to policy changes and funding cuts. Over the last 25 years, nearly 200 research data repositories have shut down permanently; more than half of those closures have happened since 2018.

Each closure represents lost knowledge and leads to broken links, bad citations, and a general inability to utilize and verify scientific findings. For example, without funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Alaska Earthquake Center has ceased providing real-time seismic data to inform tsunami warnings for the whole US West Coast. On topics as disparate as Gulf War illness or natural selection, when a repository goes dark, it can affect individuals or even entire research disciplines."