Research Data Management

A data repository is simply a place to store data. Using a repository to store and preserve your data versus hosting it on your website facilitates its discovery and preservation. This will ensure the data is accessible to other researchers and that care will be taken to preserve the data over time.

Many options exist for storage and accessibility of research data. If you're looking for a place to host your data, consider whether you want the data to be shared publicly or accessible only to you and a select group. These decisions will help to guide the proper data repository for your data. There may be more than one solution that works to address questions of accessibility and long-term storage of your research.

If you are a current UCL staff or research student, there is a free option available: UCL's institutional Research Data Repository can host data and make it freely available on the Web.

This is not an exhaustive list! Use a service such as R3data to find repositories geared to your subject area.

• R3data repository search tool

Astronomy

• SIMBAD

Biology

• ArrayExpress
• Barcode of Life Data Systems
• BioModels.Net
• Dryad
• GenBank
• Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO)
• Protein Data Bank - An information portal to biological macromolecular structures
• UniProt - high quality resource for protein sequence and functional information
• XNAT Central - Central is a database for sharing neuroimaging and related data with select collaborators or the general community.

Chemistry

• PubChem - provides information on the biological activities of small molecules. It includes substance information, compound structures, and bioactivity data in three primary databases, PCSubstance, PCCompound, and PCBioAssay, respectively.

Climate

• National Snow and Ice Data Center
• PCMDI - Program for Climate Model Diagnonsis and Intercomparison - provides faciltiies for the storage and distribution of terrascale data sets from multiple coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM simulation of present-day climate as well as climate changes resulting from large transient increases in carbon dioxide.

Computer Science

• Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) - provides tools and analyses promoting the engineering and maintenance of a robust, scalable global Internet infrastructure.

Earth Science

• COPDESS - This directory will help you, as an Earth and Space science researcher, author, or journal, find the right repository for your data, based on data type, discipline, and other relevant repository factors.
• PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth and Environmental Science.

Electron Microscopy

• emdataresource.org/ - Unified data resource for 3-dimensional electron microscopy

Energy

• Open Energy Info - Energy information, data, and other resources.

Oceanography

• National Oceanographic Data Center - for marine environmental data and information.

Seismology

• IRIS - IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions in Seismology) archives seismic data.