NIH believes that data sharing is essential for expedited translation of research results into knowledge, products, and procedures to improve human health. NIH-funded investigators are expected to share their data (i.e., the information necessary to validate research findings) with other researchers no later than when their manuscripts are accepted for publication.

All applications with direct costs of $500,000 or more in any single year must include a data sharing plan. In some cases, FOAs may request data sharing plans for applications for less than $500,000 in a single year. 

Questions to consider in preparing a data sharing plan: What data will be shared? Who will have access to the data? Where will the data to be shared be located? When will the data be shared? How will the data be accessed?

For more details, see the NIH Data Sharing Policy and Implementation Guidance.

Broad data sharing is expected for all NIH-funded research that generates large-scale human or non-human genomic data. Large scale genomic data include genome-wide association studies, single nucleotide polymorphism arrays, and genome sequence, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and gene expression data. 

All applications, regardless of funding level, must include a genomic data sharing plan. By the time data cleaning and quality control measures begin, human genomic studies should be registered in dbGAP, By the time of publication, human and non-human genomic data should be deposited in the appropriate NIH-designated data repository. 

For more information, see the Genomic Data Sharing Policy.