What are ICPSR's deposit options? How much does it cost to deposit? Why would I want ICPSR to curate my data?

ICPSR offers three main deposit options for data producers:

  1. Curated (no cost to depositor): Anyone can deposit data into ICPSR’s Member Archive at no cost. ICPSR covers curation costs with membership fees, making curated data free for member institutions and available for a fee to non-members.
  2. Curated (depositor or sponsor pays): Depositors can pay for curation services using grants or other funding. Sponsored archiving projects may also cover these costs. Curated data are free for both members and non-members. Sponsored projects may have additional selection criteria.
  3. Self-published (no cost to depositor): openICPSR allows anyone to deposit uncurated data, which are immediately available to all users for free in their submitted format. This option is popular for replication data related to a publication and that meets open-access requirements. ICPSR staff may subsequently select openICPSR data for curation.
    • Projects published through openICPSR are made available almost immediately, including all associated files. ICPSR does not curate these files upon publication.

Each study receives a persistent identifier (DOI) and data citation for proper attribution after it’s published.

If you are looking for your data to be part of the General Archive and available to all users at no cost, it is possible to pay for ICPSR’s curation services (e.g., through a grant). If you are interested in pursuing this option, please review information on budgeting for ICPSR professional curation services and contact ICPSR-help@umich.edu for a curation cost estimate.

For more information about choosing curation or to self-publish, please see the Deposit Your Data page.


Depositing Data with ICPSR: Who, What, Why, and How Much Is It? (pdf)