This research tip describes the suitability and advantage of Zenodo for preservation and sharing of research data. For a step-by-step guide on how to use Zenodo, check this research tip.

How to preserve and share research data?

The preferred option for preservation and sharing of research data is to deposit data in an established, trustworthy research data repository. Data repositories help you to make your data FAIR. Check our research tip "How to preserve and share data in data repositories?" for more info on data repositories. 

Is Zenodo a suitable data repository for my research data?

Zenodo is a generic repository that accepts content from all fields of research and all types of research outputs. For research data for which no discipline-specific or data type-specific repositories exist, we recommend the use of Zenodo at Ghent University. Check Zenodo’s policies for more details on their acceptance criteria, particularly for data for which restrictions on data sharing might apply.

Data generated in the context of European funding programs can be deposited in Zenodo. The European Commission has set up the EU Open Research Repository, a Zenodo community for EU-funded research outputs from Horizon Europe, Euratom, and earlier Framework Programs.

Why use Zenodo?

• Safe: safely store your research data for the future in CERN’s Data Centre for as long as CERN exists.
• Citable: assign a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for every research dataset, to make it citable and trackable.
• Access and reuse conditions: clearly indicate the access level (open, restricted, embargoed) and license.
• Versioning: easily update your dataset with the versioning feature.
• GitHub integration: easily preserve your GitHub repository in Zenodo and make it citable.

Getting started with Zenodo

• If you are a first-time user of Zenodo, you can try out the Zenodo sandbox instance.
• Check out datasets from Ghent University researchers in the Ghent University Research Data Community.
• Prepare your data package, upload and describe your data and publish the record.
• For more detailed instructions, check Zenodo’s quick start or go to the research tip Zenodo: step-by-step guide for preservation and sharing of research data and software.

Further reading

Further documentation is available at https://help.zenodo.org/.