Journals published by Springer-Nature (including Nature itself) now include an option for authors to share the data underpinning articles

For emergency-science that is happening fast (think Covid research) access to data that others can replicate is vital.

But making data OA has never been universally popular. Springer says less than 40 per cent of authors make data available and in 2015 Adrian Barnett asked the authors of 157 articles in the British Medical Journal for data – and got it for seven (CMM April 28 2020).

Perhaps it was too hard to organise. But not now for Nature authors, with access to data being  organised by consultants Figshare.

Good-o but is it not incongruous, CMM asked, for data to be OA when the paper it appears in is not? Springer-Nature responds that journals involved “transformative, which means they are all committed to “flipping to open access.”