Institut Pasteur’s flowchart template about legal issues related to research data dissemination

Emilie Cotte (1) , Fanny Sébire (2)

1 Direction juridique [Institut Pasteur]
2 CeRIS - Centre de Ressources en Information Scientifique

CONTEXT: As part of its 2019-2023 Strategic Plan, the Institut Pasteur has set itself the objective of "promoting open access to research data" and adopted a policy on managing and sharing research data and software codes (“RDM Policy”). This policy entered into force on 1st of May, 2021 and is accessible here: https://www.pasteur.fr/fr/file/40524/download. The RDM policy included a series of practical guides and tools, in addition to new measures concerning data management plans (DMP) which in particular allow the identification of different types of research data, and enable a pre-analysis of the legal issues related thereto prior to any dissemination or re-use/re-utilization. In this matter, scientists are strongly encouraged to disseminate, publish and share their own data according to the key principle ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. Even though this principle is derived from the mandatory legal or regulatory provisions, or required under contractual arrangements, it may however be governed by obligations to fulfil secrecy and intellectual property requirements. Hence, this implies that research data cannot be unrestrictedly disseminated. It is therefore crucial to first of all consider a set of rules to ensure that any dissemination is made in compliance with the applicable laws and regulations in force. PURPOSE: In order to support scientists for the duration of their research projects, we have set up a flowchart template that lists the main legal issues to address before proceeding with the dissemination of a dataset, respective rules applying to each data and respective support teams. We propose to release it in a mutual effort to share operational capabilities and best practices among the research community. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that the template’s goal is to provide scientists with a guidance tool. It is not meant to be used as a standalone and autonomous tool for decision making. As such, scientists are encouraged to request counsel from respective support teams. SEE ALSO: Institut Pasteur’s flowchart template about legal issues related to reuse or re-utilization of research data. https://hal-pasteur.archives-ouvertes.fr/pasteur-03587214

Mots clés: Third parties’ rights; Access restriction; Dissemination and Divulgation; Open Data; Data sharing; Sensitive data; Intellectual property; Research data; Legal protection; Data confidentiality; Flowchart

Domaines: Droit; Sciences de l'information et de la communication

Emilie Cotte, Fanny Sébire. Institut Pasteur’s flowchart template about legal issues related to research data dissemination. 2022. ⟨pasteur-03587219⟩