Data availability statement

Many scientific journals request authors to include a data availability statement (also called data accessibility statement) in submitted articles. The statement should explain where the data can be found and how access can be requested.

For sensitive human research data, the statement should make clear that the data are not openly available if they require controlled access. Adapt the wording to your journal’s requirements, the approved access policy, and the status of your FEGA Sweden submission.

If your data have already been submitted to FEGA Sweden

Use this type of wording if the data have been submitted to FEGA Sweden and the study has been assigned an EGA Study ID.

The controlled-access data generated in this study have been submitted to FEGA Sweden and are findable through the European Genome-phenome Archive web portal (https://ega-archive.org, study accession: {insert EGA Study ID}). Access requests are reviewed by the relevant Data Access Committee. If access is approved, use of the data is governed by the applicable access conditions and Data Access Agreement.

If your FEGA Sweden submission is still in progress

If your FEGA Sweden submission is not complete in time for publication, avoid wording that implies that the data are already available through FEGA Sweden. Instead, describe the access limitation and point readers to a metadata record if one is available.

One option is to create a metadata record in SciLifeLab Data Repository and refer to that record in the statement. You can read more about this approach in the SciLifeLab Research Data Management Guidelines.

For that situation, a statement could look like this:

The data presented in this paper contain sensitive information and cannot be shared openly. Submission of the data to FEGA Sweden has been initiated. FEGA Sweden is a national node of the Federated European Genome-phenome Archive (FEGA), which supports sharing of sensitive human research data under controlled access. Information about the datasets included in this study is available at SciLifeLab Data Repository, DOI {insert DOI}.