Carrie Wolinetz
October 11, 2018
When world famous cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, visited the NIH campus, he shared a story from the history of music, in which the peak of stringed instrument quality occurred in the late 17th century at a time of great collaboration and sharing of knowledge. When instrument makers began to compete, all of that changed: secrets of craftsmanship were held close and the quality of instruments plummeted. This decline lasted, according to Ma, until the 20th century, when again the free-flow of knowledge resumed. NIH Director Francis Collins noted, “There’s a lesson here about science.”
Data sharing is important. It is critical to continued progress in science, to maximize our investment in research, and to ensure the highest levels of transparency and rigor in science. But data sharing is a means to an end, not itself an end goal and, as such, needs to be done thoughtfully, in a way that fulfills the vision and mission of NIH and continues the advancement of treatments for disease and improvement of human health. NIH has long been on the forefront of making access to the results of our research accessible and has described our vision for expanding access to publications and data both in the 2015 NIH Plan for Increasing Access to Scientific Publications and Digital Scientific and in the 2018 Strategic Plan for Data Science.
Read More...Data sharing is important. It is critical to continued progress in science, to maximize our investment in research, and to ensure the highest levels of transparency and rigor in science. But data sharing is a means to an end, not itself an end goal and, as such, needs to be done thoughtfully, in a way that fulfills the vision and mission of NIH and continues the advancement of treatments for disease and improvement of human health. NIH has long been on the forefront of making access to the results of our research accessible and has described our vision for expanding access to publications and data both in the 2015 NIH Plan for Increasing Access to Scientific Publications and Digital Scientific and in the 2018 Strategic Plan for Data Science.
