NSF pushes for more data sharing on funded projects.  Good – let’s hope NSF starts a race with NIH. The culture of data privacy is (superficially) good for individual researchers, but hard to defend for society and for taxpayers. One area in which the wide push for “stronger Intellectual Property (sic) Rights” is going the other way.

Scientists Seeking NSF Funding Will Soon Be Required to Submit Data Management Plans.  Government-wide emphasis on community access to data supports substantive push toward more open sharing of research data …  In particular, on or around October, 2010, NSF is planning to require that all proposals include a data management plan in the form of a two-page supplementary document. The research community will be informed of the specifics of the anticipated changes and the agency’s expectations for the data management plans.

via nsf.gov – National Science Foundation NSF News – Scientists Seeking NSF Funding Will Soon Be Required to Submit Data Management Plans – US National Science Foundation NSF.