Research data – public records and archiving
The regulations governing the handling of documents, including research data, at the University are mainly:
- The Freedom of the Press Act (1949:105) - concerns official documents and the public's right to access to public authorities' documents.
- The Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (2009:400) - regulates the disclosure of public documents.
- Archives Act (1990:782) - instructions on order and preservation of public documents so that the principle of public access to information can work in practice.
The principle of public access to information means that there is a fundamental right for the public to have access to official documents in public authorities. Research data also becomes, as a rule, official document and this applies regardless of how the research is funded. Biological material, physical objects, artifacts, works of art or biobanks are not official documents within the meaning of the law, but documentation (data) concerning these materials and objects are official documents.
Research materials become official documents already in the course of the research process and with the support of the principle of public access, data can be requested even before results have been published.
See also:
- Basic values of central government authorities (The Swedish Agency for Public Management)
- Your role as a public sector employee at Uppsala University
Confidential information in research data
Although principle of public access to information is the general rule, there are also information that the public may not be entitled to have access to. A request for the disclosure of a public document is therefore always subject to a confidentiality check. It is only in cases where information in research data would be subject to confidentiality in accordance with any rule of The Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act that the University can refuse a disclosure to the person who requested access to the material.
Contact Legal Affairs for guidance conserning requests for public documents.
See also
- Official documents - what is it? (in Swedish)
- Management of official documents at the university (in Swedish)
Archiving of data and other research documents
The preservation of data at the university and its availability after the completion of a research project is often a prerequisite for scientific results to be reviewed and verified. Research data is also covered by the Archives Act (SFS 1990:782) requirement that research documents should be kept organized and available so that the public's right to transparency can be met.
Keep in mind that services for storing digital data usually do not have storage of inactive data as their mission. Data that is not actively used may therefore need to be moved to other storage options. Publishing data is a way of ensuring that data is made available in the long term, but it does not replace the authority's responsibility to also preserve research data locally.
After completion of a project, it is important to weed out material that can be discarded, as well as to arrange for data and other documents to be preserved. The University has a recommended directory structure that simplifies both weeding out and long-term preservation of data and other documents from a project.
In order for data to be understandable and reusable over time, it is important that it is well described, structured and that the selected formats, if possible, are open and supplier-independent with good conditions to be readable over time.
Information about media and format choices from Riksarkivet (in Swedish).
The University’s Preservation Plan for Research Documents provides guidance on which documents that should be preserved, which can be deleted immediately or after a fixed period of time. Research data should normally be preserved 10 years after completion of the project. If research data is deemed to have a long-term value, whether scientific or otherwise, it should be preserved and formally archived and not weeded out. The deletion rules are media-independent and apply in the same way to paper documents as to digital material.
Registration of research documents
The purpose of the official university diary is to keep documents in order and to allow public access to official documents in accordance with the principle of public access to information. Research data do not need to be registered in the diary, but rather certain documents relating to data and its management. For guidance on which documents to register, see Preservation Plan for Research Documents.
Contact the Registrar (registrator@uu.se) for questions about registering of research documents.
Se also: