Over 600 Springer Nature journals have started using new data policies

Each of these four policies indicates what is encouraged and/or required in terms of data sharing, citing, and/or data peer reviewing, upon submission to the journal. The policies have been introduced to encourage data sharing and citing, to make references to datasets more consistent, and to clearly show authors, editors, and peer reviewers which procedures to follow.

The four policies more from less to more strict in terms and openness:

• Policy type 1: Data sharing and data citation is encouraged
• Policy type 2: Data sharing and evidence of data sharing is encouraged
• Policy type 3: Data sharing is encouraged and statements of data availability are required
• Policy type 4: Data sharing, evidence of data sharing and peer review of data is required

Public data archiving is only required when you publish in a journal that has a type 4 policy, but all policy types encourage data sharing and citing. This will help researchers get credit for not only their published papers, but also for their published datasets. It will also increase transparency and support the reuse of datasets.

An overview of journals and their data policy types can be found here: Springer Nature Journals Data Policy Types. With more and more journals adopting one of the four policies, this list will continue to grow.