Find, re-use and cite existing data

There are a growing number of digital repositories and data centres with varying content types including articles, datasets, and images. The majority of them share data openly with the public or research community.

Accessing data in digital repositories and data centres

There are a large number of subject and discipline-specific data repositories which host re-usable research data. Digging into Data and Registry of Research Data Repositories provide catalogues of data repositories.

Further information on subject repositories and other data centres can be found in our where to preserve your data guidance.

As long as requirements regarding intellectual property rights (IPR), data protection, and ethics are met, these resources provide access to data enabling the creation of entirely new research outputs.

Citing data sources

There is no consensus on formats and components for citations of electronic data. Emerging conventions vary by discipline but there are common elements within these conventions.

The Digital Curation Centre has produced some useful guidance on how to cite datasets.