The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy, effective January 25, 2023, establishes data accessibility as a core expectation for all federally funded biomedical and behavioural research. Under this policy, investigators must submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) outlining how scientific data and accompanying metadata will be collected, documented, preserved, and made available to others. The policy makes data sharing a standard condition of NIH funding, requiring that research data be deposited in trusted, FAIR-compliant repositories to ensure long-term preservation and discoverability. Researchers are encouraged to use discipline-specific or generalist repositories that meet standards for data integrity, citation, and persistent identification.
Access to data must be provided in a manner that maximizes reuse while protecting participant privacy, intellectual property, and other ethical or legal considerations. Through this framework, the NIH seeks to promote equitable, responsible, and transparent access to scientific data, strengthening reproducibility and accelerating the translation of research into public benefit.