ECPR statement on Data Access and Research Transparency (DA-RT)

March 2017

ECPR journal editors (i.e. the European Journal of Political Research, the European Political Science Review and European Political Science) encourage the submission of qualitative and quantitative research. As generalist journals, we value all types of research and do not discriminate against any particular research tradition. We acknowledge that some types of work – such as quantitative work based on the analysis of large datasets – lend themselves more easily to data archiving than other types of work, such as qualitative and interpretivist research. We therefore support a nuanced policy with regards to data access, replication and transparency. 

Replication of findings results is important to ensure robust scientific knowledge. Data access is a move in the direction of a fully developed replication policy by offering scholars the opportunity to test hypothesis and methods on the same data set as the original publication. With this aim in mind, we agree that:

Authors wishing to submit their research results for publication must consider making public their data except in valid situations for ethical reasons. For authors of quantitative empirical articles, including simulations and experimental work, this comprises the data, code book or description of the variables included in the dataset, and specific code used to generate their results upon acceptance of the manuscript. For authors of qualitative empirical work – such as research based on interviews, participant observations or archival work – the same recommendation holds. However, we acknowledge that: (1) there are no clear standards of how qualitative data should be made public; and (2) some types of research do not lend themselves easily to data archiving and/or involve complex legal and ethical relationships with human subjects. In such cases, authors are requested to inform the editors at the time of submission whether they plan to submit primary material. If they do not, they should explain the rationale for their decision.

We encourage authors to make public these materials following the legal requirements of their own institutions and funders which can host their own data repository. This statement represents the common ECPR policy on data access and research transparency.