NISTEP survey finds research data use and sharing on the rise, yet challenges remain despite growing awareness

In 2024, the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information was adopted in Japan. This calls for the transition of scholarly research information (including bibliographic data, funding information, and impact metrics) from closed, subscription-based databases to an open environment accessible to everyone. The goal is to make evaluations of research and institutions fairer by ensuring the transparency of research information. Seen as a step toward democratizing research information and defining how research data should be managed in the age of AI, the Declaration has attracted considerable attention. Against this backdrop, what is the actual status of Japan's research data sharing and management? The National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) has published "A Survey on Open Research Data and Research Data Management (RDM) 2024: Expanding Data Sharing and Growing Repository Use" [NISTEP Research Material No. 352]. The findings show that while the use of open data and active data sharing by researchers are both on the rise, persistent shortages of personnel, time, and funding that are needed for data publication remain, and data sharing is still not adequately evaluated within researchers' own institutions.

This biennial survey was conducted online in November and December 2024, targeting 1,675 researchers belonging to the S&T Experts Network, and received responses from 1,167 of them.

85.3% of respondents had experience obtaining open data (up 14.3 percentage points from 2020), exceeding 80% for the first time since the survey began. The main sources were supplementary materials accompanying journal articles (51%), institutional repositories (50.5%), and code-sharing services (35.7%).

Although more researchers now have experience obtaining data, 66.7% reported experiencing problems when acquiring or using data. Other issues cited include the requirement to register as a user (41.1%) and inconsistent data formats across different datasets (40.5%).

The share of researchers with experience preparing a Data Management Plan (DMP) rose to 39.7% (up 11.1 percentage points), continuing a steady upward trend year by year. The most commonly prepared DMPs were those required by research funded by JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency) (42.5%), followed by those for KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) (30.8%).

The share of researchers with experience sharing research data reached 66.1% (up 16 percentage points), exceeding 60% for the first time. The main media for sharing data were supplementary materials in journal articles (52.9%), institutional repositories (37.4%), and personal or laboratory websites (23.9%). The leading reason for sharing data was "because it is the policy of the journal to which I submitted my paper" (50.6%), while the main reason for not sharing was "because it is not the policy of that journal" (30.5%), indicating that academic publishers' and journals' policies continue to heavily influence data sharing behavior.

On the subject of awareness around data sharing, a relatively high proportion of researchers valued citation of papers linked to their data (92.5% rated it important or somewhat important), citation of the data itself (90%), and being evaluated for data sharing as a research achievement on a par with publications (72.6%) as incentives for data sharing. The sense that there is a lack of resources available for data preparation and sharing—namely personnel, time, and funding—has remained consistently high (roughly 70-90%) throughout the period since the survey began. Although the feeling that there are shortages in storage for archiving, repositories for sharing, and storage during active research had eased somewhat since 2020, it has risen again in this survey. Concerns about data sharing remain broadly strong; in particular, high proportions of researchers identified the "risk of their data being used without citation" and the "potential for secondary-use liability" as significant problems. The proportion of researchers who would like to entrust librarians or data curators with the process of preparing, sharing, and archiving research data increased dramatically, from 48.2% to 75.4%. Specifically, many researchers wanted support with selecting an appropriate repository (81%), converting data to appropriate formats (68.8%), and selecting an appropriate license (66.1%). While 72.5% of researchers view data sharing positively, only 16.4% believe their institution actually recognizes it in the evaluation. The second most common reason for not sharing data was that it is not recognized in the evaluation of professional achievement (27.8%), pointing to the need for mechanisms that properly evaluate data sharing.

Principal Senior Fellow Kazuhiro Hayashi of NISTEP, commented: "In this survey, which we began in 2016, the share of researchers with data-sharing experience had hovered around 50%, but in this fifth survey it jumped significantly to 66%. Experience with DMP preparation has also been growing steadily, and I take this as a sign that various policy measures relating to research data and the building of research data distribution infrastructure are beginning to have an effect. We also see that many researchers are looking for support with their research data, and expectations of librarians are rising. Meanwhile, the findings confirm that research data sharing and publication remain undervalued, and that the gap between researchers' awareness and institutional systems is still large. In light of the AI for Science era, it is becoming increasingly important to build infrastructure—in terms of people, funding, and systems—that will make research data sharing and publication the norm."