Article written by Romain Féret, member of the Committee for Open Science’s Research Data College.

The Research Data College has set up a working group on the link between publications and research data. The aim is to contribute to the implementation of the Second Commitment of National Plan For Open Science.

This working group has written recommendations aimed at journals to help them implement a ‘data policy’. A data policy specifies what the journal expects from its authors regarding the management, archiving and dissemination of research data related to their publications.

These data policies are currently becoming widespread for science, technology and medicine journals but remain fairly uncommon for humanities and social sciences journals. This document is primarily intended for HSS publishers but is nonetheless not limited to this field.

These recommendations are the result of work involving colleagues from various organisations – Romain Féret from Normandy University, Nicolas Larrousse and Hélène Jouguet from HumaNum, Sandra Guigonis from OpenEdition, Françoise Gouzi and Armelle Thomas from the REPÈRES network of journal incubators and respectively members of the Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès and the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Dijon

The recommendations are organised in 7 sections, each of which corresponds to a facet of a data policy. For each section, there is a description along with a list of points for attention and the important issues. Finally, writing suggestions are provided. Journals are invited to implement their policy progressively, taking inspiration from the existing typologies in this field which are reiterated in the introduction to the document.

We invite publishers and members of journal editorial boards to take good note of these recommendations and contact their local and national contacts to implement them if necessary.