| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3393886 | Acta Tropica | 2013 | 5 Pages |
•Data sharing in science is not straightforward, but is crucial for effective research partnerships.•We discuss data management and sharing in research projects in the light of the current donor demand.•We offer advice and specific suggestions for similar interdisciplinary research projects.•We achieved harmonization of study protocols.•We initialized the build-up of the www.gntd.org website.
The scientific community is charged with growing demands regarding the management of project data and outputs and the dissemination of key results to various stakeholders. We discuss experiences and lessons from CONTRAST, a multidisciplinary alliance that had been funded by the European Commission over a 4-year period, in order to optimize schistosomiasis control and transmission surveillance in sub-Saharan Africa. From the start, project partners from Europe and Africa set out an ambitious goal: to sample data following standard protocols at all field sites and then sharing the data in a way that would enable all project partners to have access through a password-protected Internet-based data portal. This required anonymous agreement on several common standardized sample forms, ranging from the mundane but important issue of using the same units of measurement to more complex challenges, for instance agreeing on the same protocols for double-treatment of praziquantel in different settings. With the experiences gained by the CONTRAST project, this paper discusses issues of data management and sharing in research projects in the light of the current donor demand, and offers advice and specific suggestions for similar interdisciplinary research projects.
Graphical abstractThe front page of the www.gntd.org website, one of the achievements of the CONTRAST project; a result of the data management plan setup by the project.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide
