Sharing your data
Sharing a neuroscience dataset openly requires decisions at each stage of the research cycle: what consent to obtain, what format to use, where to deposit, and how to register the result so others can find and cite it. This perspective walks through those stages in order. For modality-specific standards and repositories, see the relevant domain perspective: Neuroimaging, Electrophysiology, Genomics, Bioimaging, Cognition, or Computational. For funder mandates and national platforms, see the relevant geographic perspective.
Before you collect
Participant consent
Open Brain Consent provides GDPR-compatible model informed consent forms designed specifically for neuroimaging and electrophysiology data from human participants. The forms explicitly allow open data sharing and have been reviewed against European data protection requirements. Consent obtained without an open-sharing clause cannot be retroactively revised, which makes this the step with the highest downstream cost if skipped.
Study registration
Pre-registering a study design before data collection reduces publication bias and is increasingly recognised by journals and funders. OSF is the standard platform for pre-registration in non-clinical neuroscience research. For clinical trials, registration before first patient enrolment is a legal requirement: ClinicalTrials.gov is the primary global registry, and CTIS is mandatory for all trials conducted under EU clinical trials legislation.
Data management plan
Most research funders require a data management plan specifying where data will be stored, how it will be described, and under what conditions it will be shared. Making format and repository choices before writing the plan makes it straightforward to complete. Common DMP tools include OPIDoR (France, ANR-aligned), DMPTool (USA, NIH-aligned), DMP Online (UK, UKRI/Wellcome-aligned), and the Data Stewardship Wizard (EU/ELIXIR, with maDMP export). RDMkit, maintained by ELIXIR, provides comprehensive RDM guidance covering the full data lifecycle, navigable by life science domain and by country. For funder-specific requirements and pre-registration as standalone topics, see Study Registration and Data Management.
Formatting your data
Every research modality has a community-adopted format standard. Using it is the single most important step for repository acceptance and interoperability downstream. Validate against the format standard before deposit: most domain repositories run validation on upload and reject non-compliant datasets. The domain perspectives describe each standard in depth. The reference below covers the working choices.
| Modality | Standard format | See |
|---|---|---|
| MRI, fMRI, PET | BIDS over NIfTI | Neuroimaging |
| EEG, MEG, iEEG | BIDS with EDF or BrainVision, plus HED for events | Electrophysiology |
| Invasive neurophysiology | NWB, plus HED for events | Electrophysiology |
| Genomics (raw to processed) | FASTQ → SAM-BAM-CRAM → VCF | Genomics |
| Single-cell genomics | h5ad (AnnData / Seurat) | Genomics |
| Bioimaging | OME File Formats (OME-TIFF or OME-Zarr) | Bioimaging |
| Behavioural and cognitive | BIDS with HED event sidecar files | Cognition |
| Computational models | NeuroML (models), SWC (morphologies) | Computational |
| Clinical trial data | CDISC (SDTM, ADaM) | Clinical Trials |
| Health data | OMOP CDM harmonisation applied at source by the institution holding the data | Health |
Choosing a repository
The right repository depends on data modality, access policy, and any funder or institutional requirements. Domain perspectives list the full repository landscape for each modality. The table below gives a broad overview with examples. For country-specific deposit requirements and recommended national platforms, see the geographic perspective for your region.
| Modality | Open access | Controlled access | See |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neuroimaging | OpenNeuro | Public-nEUro (EU), NIMH Data Archive (US) | Neuroimaging |
| Electrophysiology | DANDI Archive | G-Node (EU) | Electrophysiology |
| Genomics | ENA / SRA / DDBJ | EGA (EU), dbGaP (US) | Genomics |
| Single-cell genomics | CELLxGENE, NeMO Archive | EGA (EU), dbGaP (US) | Genomics |
| Bioimaging | BioImage Archive | — | Bioimaging |
| Behavioural / cognitive | OpenNeuro (with recordings), OSF or Zenodo (standalone) | — | Cognition |
| Computational models | ModelDB, OpenSourceBrain | — | Computational |
| Clinical trial data | Results via ClinicalTrials.gov | See Clinical Trials | Clinical Trials |
| Health data | See Health | EGA (EU), dbGaP (US), and national platforms (see geographic perspective) | Health |
| Any modality | Zenodo | — | |
| Discover domain repositories | FAIRsharing, re3data | — |
Depositing and registering
Deposit the dataset with complete metadata, including ORCID identifiers for all contributors. Most repositories assign a DOI via DataCite automatically on submission, making the dataset citable from the moment of deposit.
After depositing, register the dataset in FAIRsharing to link it to the standards it uses and make it findable alongside related repositories and policies. FAIR-Checker can then assess the FAIRness of the deposited resource by its URL or DOI, identifying specific gaps in metadata completeness, structure, and interoperability against recognised standards. If the study was pre-registered, link the deposit record to the pre-registration entry in OSF or the relevant clinical trials registry. Include the repository DOI in a data availability statement in your paper. A statement saying only “data available on request” requires no actual deposit and routinely results in low retrieval rates. Publishers aligned with cOAlition S increasingly require a verified deposit DOI rather than a request-based statement.
For the provenance and reproducibility layer (open code, workflow tracking, and re-executable pipelines alongside your data), see Reproducibility.