How to Share and Deposit NIH Data

Identify data fit

ICPSR accepts a wide range of social science data. This includes data from surveys, experiments, observational studies, administrative records, and other forms of quantitative and qualitative data. Additionally, ICPSR may accept data from diverse disciplines within the social sciences, including but not limited to sociology, political science, economics, psychology, and public health. For more information, see the ICPSR Collection Development Policy. Read below for specific NIH-funded archives that might align with your funding and data topic.

(Optional) Include a budget for ICPSR curation

Budgeting for ICPSR’s data archiving services is typically straightforward, since most researchers can deposit data at no cost with standard archiving and curation included. Only in cases where funders require a budget line, or when opting for open access or professional curation, do fees need to be considered. If you need to include a budget for ICPSR curation services:

1. Review data submission requirements
2. Review the data archiving options and select which choice is applicable to your grant submission
3. (optional) Designate ICPSR as the intended repository in your Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMS Plan).* Hint: Use the ICPSR NIH DMS Plan template (.docx) to create your DMS Plan -OR- use the copy-and-paste language provided (highlighted in yellow in the document).

*NIH grantees may also consider designating one of the NIH-funded archives hosted by ICPSR — Data Sharing for Demographic Research, National Computerized Data on Aging, and National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program — in your data management plan if the data fall within the ICPSR Collection Development Policy.

Prepare for deposit

Deposits should include all data and documentation necessary to independently read and interpret the data collection. ICPSR encourages depositors to submit data files for archiving as SPSS, SAS, or Stata files if they are quantitative data or in plain text (*.txt), rich text (*.rtf), scanned image of text with OCR (*.pdf), or Microsoft Word (*.doc, *.docx) for qualitative data. ASCII files are also acceptable if setup files accompany them. Datasets in other formats are accepted as well. Use the Depositor Checklist or read more on the Start Deposit page.

Upload data & other research materials

Once you’ve collected everything needed to deposit your data, it’s time to submit it. Review which details about your deposit you will need readily available and other information about preparing for deposit. Then click on the ‘Start Deposit’ button on the deposit page to get started or read more about how to use ICPSR’s deposit system.