Modelling perception and resilience factors to data sharing in clinical and basic research: an observational study

Abstract

Data sharing is a major tenet in the global challenge to improve the reproducibility of scientific findings. Current researcher attitudes toward data sharing and Open Science in general are still far from optimal. The practice of data sharing and how it should be managed remain unclear and inconsistent, with many researchers keen to receive from, but not give back to the community. The lack of a data sharing culture, systemic resistance, misconceptions on data ownership and the unjustified fear of being “scooped”, all concur to create an enormous barrier to the promotion of scientific research based on increased information quality, transparency and openness, and replicability of results. These factors are also compounded by the erroneous perception that the sharing of data compromises competitiveness. Here, we present a rigorous observational study based on 198 researchers in the biomedical areas to evaluate factors affecting perception and natural attitude to data sharing in the biomedical sciences.