The primary data produced in the course of publicly-funded science represents a common asset for society as
much as the analysed and interpreted results. Recent years have seen widespread agreement that such data
should be accessible by scientists and the public. Open access publication has been the focus of much attention.
However, the public availability of primary data requires the establishment of governance and a sharing infrastructure.
International guidelines have been established for open data (FAIR) and transparent publication (TOP).
Availability and reuse of primary scientific data increases the accountability, reproducibility and value of publicly
funded science and assures that research resources developed with public funds become readily available to
the broader research community ultimately to the benefit of the public. Furthermore, journals and funders are
increasingly requiring that all study data are made openly available. In response to these needs, in radiation protection
research we have developed the STORE data sharing platform, initially funded under the European Commission’s
EURATOM programme. STORE permits users to upload and share data; users can maintain control over
data dissemination through Creative Commons licensing. The data structure in STORE is centred on the study
which is a top level directory.
Within a study there are datasets and within these there can be individual files or data elements, which can be of
any type or size and annotated with standard metadata Each dataset and data item are assigned a STORE ID and
a DOI. STORE currently contains about 100 studies and more than 3000 individual data elements, which range
from epidemiology data, through images to proteomics and raw mass spectroscopy data. STORE is compliant
with the FAIR data principles and is registered with r3Data, the ELIXIR/EBI-based MIRIAM register of persistent
identifiers, and the FAIR sharing initiative.
STORE (http://www.storedb.org) is open and free to investigators and to funding agencies as a central repository for data sharing