Skip to Main Content

NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy: Data Repositories

Created by Health Science Librarians

NIH and Other Guidance on Selecting a Data Repository

NIH encourages the use of established repositories. Depositing data in a quality repository generally improves the FAIRness of data - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable. NIH Institutes and Centers may designate specific data repositories for use to preserve and share data.

Primary consideration should be given to data repositories that are discipline or data-type specific to support effective data discovery and reuse.

If no appropriate discipline or data-type specific repository is available, researchers should consider a variety of other potentially suitable data sharing options such as inclusion of small datasets (up to 2 GB) as supplementary materials submitted to PubMed Central, deposit in generalist repositories or institutional repositories or submission of large datasets to cloud-based repositories for data access, preservation and sharing.

Repository Types:
- Open: distributed online and free of cost or other access barriers

- Subject-specific: limited to data of a specific type or discipline

- Generalist:  not restricted to a specific data type, format, content, or disciplinary focus

- Institutional:  associated with and restricted to hosting data from a specific university or other research institution

1. NIH Repositories

3. UNC Repositories

4. Generalist Repositories

Other Tools for Finding Data Repositories

Contact Us

For further assistance:

If you would like assistance creating your data management plan or did not find the agency information you needed here, please contact us at dataplan@listserv.unc.edu.