November 2011

Central facilities for neutron scattering and synchrotron X-rays in Europe are working together increasingly to develop and share infrastructure for the data collected there. Such co-operation should make it easier and more efficient for users to access and process their data, and provide more secure means of storage and retrieval. It should also increase the scientific value of the data by opening it up to a wider community for further analysis and fostering new collaborations between scientific groups. Ultimately this should improve the quality and quantity of publications from such data. However, with these developments comes a need to define how such data and any associated metadata are stored and made accessible, and for this a common data policy has been established to provide a suitable working framework.

The Scientific Council encouraged the ILL to implement a data policy in its meeting in April 2010 to better define, manage and exploit this valuable resource. This proposal was refined through discussion with ILL scientists over the following year, taking into account a number of concerns about possible improper use. For example there will be an embargo period of 3 years that can be extended in a light-touch fashion when there is good reason not to allow it to go public. The Scientific Council congratulated ILL in its meeting of November 2011 for recognising so effectively its responsibility towards the data generated through its experimental programme.

The complete document describing the ILL data policy can be found here.

The new ILL data policy will be applied from 2012 onwards, starting with those proposals accepted at the next proposal round (deadline 15 February 2012).