Funding agencies ponder new policies that call for grantees to archive and share their research data. By Beth Azar Monitor staff F ew researchers would deny that, in general, sharing research data with colleagues is the best way to move research forward. But when actually asked to yield their data, many become wary.
Psychologists are particularly reluctant to share research data, say experts in the field.
Although psychologists are bound by the ethical guidelines of APA and other professional organizations to hand over data to any colleagues who make reasonable requests, psychologists have not made it a custom to pool resources. They will need to re-examine that tradition over the next several years. Most everyone who follows science policy agrees that as technology makes data sharing more feasible, funding agencies will require researchers to comply with data-sharing requests and to put their federally funded research results into public archives, which would be available to scientists and, in some cases, to the public. And psychologists need to decide whether they will ride in first class by helping to shape data sharing policies or in the baggage compartment, having had little say in how they got on the train, she says. Not that NIH or any other funding agency would force everyone to share all data.