Data sharing promotes many goals of the NIH research endeavor. It is
particularly important for unique data that cannot be readily replicated.
Data sharing allows scientists to expedite the translation of research
results into knowledge, products, and procedures to improve human health.
There are many reasons to share data from NIH-supported studies. Sharing
data reinforces open scientific inquiry, encourages diversity of analysis
and opinion, promotes new research, makes possible the testing of new
or alternative hypotheses and methods of analysis, supports studies
on data collection methods and measurement, facilitates the education
of new researchers, enables the exploration of topics not envisioned
by the initial investigators, and permits the creation of new datasets
when data from multiple sources are combined.
In NIH’s view, all data should be considered for data sharing.
Data should be made as widely and freely available as possible
while safeguarding the privacy of participants, and protecting confidential
and proprietary data. To facilitate data sharing, investigators
submitting a research application requesting $500,000 or more of direct
costs in any single year to NIH on or after October 1, 2003, are expected
to include a plan for sharing final research data for research purposes,
or state why data sharing is not possible. (Link)