Sharing can therefore increase data validity, but it also squeezes more value from the original research investment, as well as helps to avoid unnecessary repetition of studies. It allows conclusions to be re-examined and verified or, occasionally, corrected, and it can allow new hypotheses to be tested. 8 Scientifically, sharing makes it possible to compare or combine the data from different studies, and to more easily aggregate it for meta-analysis. Sharing data from clinical research can be justified on scientific, economic and ethical grounds.

Indeed, it has been argued that clinical trial data should be shared and treated as a public good whoever generates it, that is, whether they are created by publicly funded or commercial research. Given the key evidential role that clinical trials play in determining evidence-based medicine and evidence-based public health policies, sharing this type of data is seen as particularly important.

6ĭata from clinical research are not exempt from this call, even though concerns over participant privacy mean that such data often need to be specially prepared (eg, de-identified) before they can be shared. 5 This trend reflects the growing recognition that ‘Publicly funded research data are a public good, produced in the public interest, which should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible in a timely and responsible manner’. In recent years, several major organisations have called for increased sharing of the data generated by publicly funded research, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2 the European Commission, 3 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the USA 4 and the G8 science ministers.

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