The repository draws together data deposited with national subject repositories over the past 40 years, alongside more recent datasets that have been published to support research publications.

The service is being provided by Library Services, in collaboration with IT Services and Research and Enterprise Development. It provides a showcase for Bristol research data and enables and encourages the creation of new collaborative partnerships.

Professor Guy Orpen, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, said: ‘The new Research Data Repository is a valuable addition to our existing world-class data storage and High-Performance Computing provision. It provides an essential piece of the jigsaw that allows researchers to move seamlessly from data creation to secure storage through to publication.’

Director of Library Services, Jess Gardner, explains: ‘The Library is committed to providing research services that match Bristol’s international standing as a research powerhouse, and we are delighted to be among the first institutions in the UK to offer a dedicated data repository’.

Sharing research data can help to increase its impact, and that of associated research, through greater citation and re-use. Each dataset is assigned a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) which allows the data to be easily cited by other researchers.  The repository will be integrated with the University’s Pure Information System later this year so that researchers can easily link their research publications to the underlying research data (now a requirement of many research funders and publishers – see ‘Further information’, below).

If you are a University of Bristol researcher and have research data that you want to make publicly available, please contact the Research Data Service team at data-bris@bristol.ac.uk.

Visit the repository at http://data.bris.ac.uk/data/.