What is a Data Availability Statement and how do I write and submit one?

We encourage authors to include in any articles that report results derived from research data to include a Data Availability Statement (DAS). A DAS should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. Where research data are not publicly available, this must be stated along with any conditions for accessing the data. A DAS must take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple types of research data):

• The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]
  
• The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
  
• The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
  
• Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.
  
• All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].
  
• The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party name] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name].

In most cases authors will be prompted to include a DAS as part of the online submission process to their chosen journal. If you are not, please include the DAS in your manuscript file under the heading ‘Data Availability Statement’ as part of the end matter of your article.

Authors choosing to utilize the Sage partnership with Figshare should write their statement, and indicate that they have uploaded the file(s) to Sage. The Sage production editor will then add a link to the research data during the production stages, which authors should carefully check when reviewing proofs.