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There are more than 1,000 repositories where scientists can deposit data and documents associated with their manuscripts. The majority of these are subject-specific—there are ones specialized for chemical and molecular structures (Crystallography Open Database, Protein Data Bank, Coherent X-ray Imaging Data Bank), neuroimaging data (OpenNeuro, NeuroVault), and mathematical models (BioModels, The Network Data Exchange), just to name a few. Several publishers recommend that authors submit their material to such subject-specific repositories whenever possible.
Subject-specific repositories provide a few advantages, according to Grace Baynes, the vice president of research data and new product development at Springer Nature: they’re designed with the specific research community that’s using those data in mind, and putting data into a repository that your peers use may optimize your chances of connecting with a future collaborator. But such repositories still don’t exist for many research areas, and that’s where general repositories can play ...
