DANS — Data Archiving and Networked Services

Overview

DANS is the Dutch national centre of expertise and repository for research data, established as a joint institute of KNAW and NWO. Founded in 2005, it operates a portfolio of archiving and sharing services covering all research domains, including a dedicated Life Sciences Data Station relevant to biomedical and neuroscience research. As of 2024 it held over 300,000 datasets and employs approximately 60 staff.

Services

• The Data Stations are discipline-specific repositories where researchers deposit, manage, and share data within environments connected to their own research infrastructures. The Life Sciences Data Station is the relevant entry point for biological and health sciences data.
• The Data Vault is a certified long-term preservation repository holding all datasets entrusted to DANS, including those from the Data Stations and legacy systems.
• DataverseNL is a shared institutional data-publishing service based on the Harvard Dataverse software, operated jointly with participating Dutch research institutions.
• EASY is an older archiving system for humanities, health sciences, and social sciences datasets that remains accessible for legacy deposits.

Access

All publicly archived datasets are freely accessible without registration. Datasets with restricted access conditions are governed by terms set by the depositing researcher or institution. DANS provides a unified search interface across its Data Stations and the Data Vault.

Connections

• endorsedBy: CoreTrustSeal

Resources

• https://dans.knaw.nl/en/about/
• https://dans.knaw.nl/en/life-sciences/ (Life Sciences Data Station)
• https://dans.knaw.nl/en/data-vault/ (Data Vault)