Data Availability
Discoveries in Agriculture and Food Sciences
Data Availability
DAFS’s expectations for data-availability statements, repositories and reproducibility in agricultural- and food-science research.
Openness about the data and materials behind published findings strengthens confidence in research and supports reproducibility. DAFS therefore encourages authors to share the data, and where relevant the code and materials, underlying their results to the fullest extent that ethics, safety and law permit.
Data-availability statement
Each research article should include a data-availability statement explaining whether, and how, the data supporting the results may be accessed. Where they cannot be shared, the statement should say so and explain why. Typical formulations include:
| ▸ | “The data supporting this study are openly available in [repository] at [DOI or URL].” |
| ▸ | “The data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.” |
| ▸ | “The data are not publicly available owing to confidentiality, safety or legal restrictions.” |
Recommended practice
Where sharing is appropriate, deposit data in a recognised, citable repository that issues a persistent identifier, and cite it in the reference list. Use discipline-specific repositories where they exist — for example nucleotide and genome sequences in the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (GenBank, ENA or DDBJ), and germplasm and genetic resources through recognised gene banks with accession numbers — and general-purpose repositories such as Zenodo, Figshare, the Open Science Framework or Harvard Dataverse otherwise. Report methods in enough detail to permit reproduction, and share protocols and materials where helpful.
Restricted and personal data
The sharing of data must never override confidentiality, consent terms, safety, biosecurity or data-protection obligations. Personal data must be anonymised before sharing (see Research Ethics & Consent and the Privacy Policy).
Funding disclosure
Authors must also state all sources of funding for the research, including grant numbers, or confirm that the research received no specific funding.
