Between November 2016 and February 2017, FORS, the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, conducted an online survey of social science researchers in Switzerland to better understand researchers’ attitudes, practices, and needs specifically regarding data sharing and re-use.

Here are some key findings:

• Across disciplines, around 80 percent of researchers generally consider the sharing of research data to be very important.
• More than two-thirds of the researchers stated that they had already shared data.
• Data sharing is most common amongst colleagues inside the same institution and within researchers’ broader networks.
• Conditions most cited for sharing data include being informed about the projects that other researchers carry out based on one’s data and the desire to be cited for the use of one’s data by others.
• Re-using quantitative data is much more common than re-using qualitative data.
• There is a large interest in and strong need for additional services and materials in the area of data management, especially for data management planning, data preparation and cleaning, and security, storage and backup.

Click here to consult the report "Data sharing and re-use: Researcher practices, attitudes and needs - FORS survey of social science researchers in Switzerland".

Read the full news item on the FORS website.

Take a look at FORS' Annual Report 2016 to find out more about FORS' core activities, scientific collaborations, publications, facts and figures. The report also includes a note from the FORS director, Professor Georg Lutzon,on linked data for innovative research.

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