Open and FAIR data sharing policy

Information for authors

Many Taylor & Francis journals have policies on data sharing which state how data associated with your article should be shared.

Vector illustration of a character in pink, looking to the right through a telescope.
  • Open data describes a specific way of making data accessible to readers/researchers. Data will be stored in a repository under an open license (usually CC-BY or CC0). Equivalent to an open access article.

  • FAIR data is an aspirational term outlining best practice for preserving research data. The principles of FAIR data are that it should be: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

On this page, our open and FAIR data sharing policy is described.

You will need to pay close attention to the guidance if you’re an author submitting to a journal with this policy.

Publishing tips, direct to your inbox

Expert tips and guidance on getting published and maximizing the impact of your research. Register now for weekly insights direct to your inbox.

About this policy

Authors are required to make the data and materials supporting the results or analyses presented in their paper freely available.

A CC BY, CCO or equivalent license should be applied to any datasets to allow reuse by any third party for any lawful purpose. Data should meet with FAIR standards established by the subject area.

Vector illustration of a closed blue padlock.

Please note that data should only be shared if it is ethically correct to do so, where this does not violate the protection of human subjects, or other valid ethical, privacy, or security concerns.

Depositing data

Vector illustration of a pink light bulb.

Data must be deposited in a recognized data repository that can mint a persistent digital identifier, such as a digital object identifier (DOI), and recognizes a long-term preservation plan. We highly encourage researchers to consider the FAIR Data Principles when depositing data. We further advise researchers to use FAIRsharing and re3data to search for a suitable repository – both provide a list of certified data repositories.

Data availability statement (DAS)

Authors are required to provide a data availability statement, detailing where data associated with a paper can be found and how it can be accessed. The DAS should be submitted within the article manuscript, before the ‘References’ section. If data cannot be made open, authors should state why in the data availability statement.

The table below contains some template statements which comply with our open and FAIR policy. This is not an exhaustive list however, and an individual data set might warrant a different type of statement.

Availability of data Template for data availability statement
Data openly available in a public repository (that supports FAIR principles) that issues datasets with DOIs under open licence (e.g. CC0) The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name e.g “figshare” at http://doi.org/[doi], reference number [reference number].
Data openly available under open licence (e.g. CC0) in a public repository (that supports FAIR principles) that does not issue DOIs The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] [check finder tool] at [URL], reference number [reference number].
Data derived from public domain resources The data that support the findings of this study are available in [repository name] at [URL/DOI], reference number [reference number]. These data were derived from the following resources available in the public domain: [list resources and URLs]
Data sharing not applicable – no new data generated Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.
Data not available due to [ethical/legal/commercial] restrictions Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Data citation

Vector illustration of a bar chart, smallest bar is blue on the left, the tallest bar is pink in the middle, and the right bar is blue and is the middle tallest.

Taylor & Francis supports the Force 11 Joint Declaration of Citation Principles, which recognize data as important, citable products of research, and that data citations should be both understandable by humans and machine-readable.

Authors are expected to cite any datasets in the body of the article, with a corresponding reference in the reference list. Please refer to our data citation best practice.

Submission

At the point of submission, you will be asked to provide the DOI, pre-registered DOI, hyperlink, or other persistent identifier associated with the data set(s). If you have selected to provide a pre-registered DOI, please be prepared to share the reviewer URL associated with your data deposit, upon request by reviewers.

It is the author’s responsibility to ensure the soundness of any data. Any errors in the data rest solely with the producers of the dataset(s). Peer reviewers and editors will be considering a manuscript’s data availability statement and whether the authors have complied with the journal’s data sharing policy.

Vector illustration of a character wearing a blue top, pale blue trousers, in a walking stance, carrying a pink parcel box with both arms.
Vector illustration of a female character holding a large magnifying glass and smiling.

Peer review

It is the author’s responsibility to ensure the soundness of any data. Any errors in the data rest solely with the producers of the dataset(s).

Peer reviewers and editors will be considering a manuscript’s data availability statement and whether the authors have complied with the journal’s data sharing policy.

Support

If you need support with this policy, please refer to our data sharing FAQs or email [email protected].

A number of our journals in earth, space and environmental sciences are introducing an open and FAIR data sharing policy as part of COPDESS (The Coalition for Publishing Data in the Earth and Space Sciences). Find out more about the initiative and which journals are included.