👩‍🔬 General Principle

Authors are encouraged to share the data and materials that support the findings reported in their manuscripts whenever it is ethically, legally, and practically possible.

Data sharing should enable other researchers to:

• Understand and evaluate the reported findings
• Reproduce or verify analyses where appropriate
• Conduct legitimate secondary research
• Promote transparency and research integrity
• Increase the usefulness and long-term value of published research

Data sharing should not compromise the privacy, rights, safety, or confidentiality of research participants.

🧪 Data Availability Statement

Where applicable, authors should provide a Data Availability Statement in the manuscript.

The statement should clearly indicate how and where the data supporting the findings can be accessed.

Depending on the circumstances, an appropriate statement may indicate that:

• Data are available in a publicly accessible repository.
• Data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
• Data are available from a designated repository with an appropriate access procedure.
• Data cannot be publicly shared because of ethical, privacy, legal, or confidentiality restrictions.
• No new data were generated or analyzed for the article.

Authors should ensure that their Data Availability Statement accurately reflects the actual availability of the underlying data.

🏛 Public Data Repositories

Where appropriate, authors are encouraged to deposit research data in a reputable subject-specific or general-purpose data repository.

Authors should preferably use repositories that provide:

• Persistent identifiers, such as DOIs
• Appropriate metadata
• Long-term preservation
• Access controls where necessary
• Clear licensing or reuse information

Where a suitable disciplinary repository exists, authors are encouraged to consider using that repository.

🔍 Data Supporting Published Findings

Authors should retain appropriate underlying research data and supporting materials for a reasonable period consistent with applicable institutional, ethical, legal, and disciplinary requirements.

Where data are shared, authors should provide sufficient documentation to allow other researchers to understand the dataset and, where appropriate, reproduce the reported analysis.

Supporting materials may include, where applicable:

• Anonymized datasets
• Data dictionaries
• Research protocols
• Statistical analysis files
• Code or scripts
• Questionnaires or survey instruments
• Supplementary methodological materials

⚖️ Human Participant Data

Special care is required when research involves human participants.

Authors must not publicly share identifiable personal information unless appropriate consent and legal and ethical authorization permit such sharing.

Before sharing human participant data, authors should consider:

• De-identification or anonymization
• Participant consent
• Ethics committee requirements
• Privacy protections
• Applicable data protection laws
• Restrictions imposed by institutions or funding bodies

Where data cannot be openly shared because of confidentiality or ethical restrictions, authors should explain the limitation in the Data Availability Statement.

📌 Sensitive and Confidential Data

Some datasets cannot be made openly accessible because they contain sensitive, confidential, proprietary, or otherwise restricted information.

Examples may include:

• Personally identifiable information
• Clinical or medical records
• Sensitive participant information
• Confidential institutional information
• Proprietary datasets
• Legally protected information

In such cases, authors should provide an appropriate alternative access mechanism where ethically and legally possible, such as controlled access through an institution, repository, or data custodian.

🔐 Data Obtained from Third Parties

When research uses data obtained from third parties, authors must comply with the terms under which the data were provided.

Authors should not share third-party data if they do not have permission or legal authority to do so.

Where the underlying data cannot be shared, authors should provide sufficient information about the data source and explain any applicable access restrictions.

🏛 Data Sharing and Ethical Approval

Data sharing must be consistent with the original ethical approval and participant consent.

Authors should not share data in a manner that conflicts with:

• Ethical approval
• Informed consent
• Participant privacy
• Institutional requirements
• Applicable laws or regulations

Where an ethics committee has imposed restrictions on data sharing, authors should follow those restrictions and explain the limitations where appropriate.

📌 Data Quality and Integrity

Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and appropriate documentation of shared research data.

Shared datasets should not be intentionally altered in a manner that misrepresents the research.

Where data have been processed, transformed, anonymized, or otherwise modified for sharing, authors should provide appropriate information about the procedures used where necessary to understand the dataset.

🔍 Data Availability and Peer Review

Where appropriate, editors and reviewers may consider the availability and adequacy of supporting research data as part of the evaluation of a manuscript.

Editors may request access to relevant data or supporting materials when necessary to assess the validity or integrity of the research.

Such requests will take into account ethical, legal, confidentiality, and practical considerations.

📌 Data Sharing After Publication

Authors are encouraged to maintain access to the research data supporting their published work in accordance with applicable requirements.

If a dataset or repository location changes after publication, authors should provide updated information where possible.

Where significant concerns arise regarding the availability, integrity, or reliability of supporting data after publication, LQP may investigate the matter under its publication ethics and research misconduct procedures.

🔍 Data Citation

Authors should appropriately cite datasets and data repositories used in their research.

Where authors make their own research data publicly available, they are encouraged to provide a persistent identifier, such as a DOI, and to make the dataset appropriately citable.

Data citations should provide sufficient information to identify and locate the relevant dataset.

📌 Intellectual Property and Licensing

Data sharing must respect applicable intellectual property rights, contractual obligations, licenses, and ownership arrangements.

Authors should ensure that they have the necessary rights or permissions to share datasets, code, images, instruments, or other supporting materials.

Where data are publicly shared, authors should clearly state any applicable reuse or licensing conditions.

🔍 Exceptions to Data Sharing

LQP recognizes that data cannot always be shared openly.

Acceptable reasons for restricting or preventing public data sharing may include:

• Protection of participant confidentiality
• Ethical restrictions
• Legal restrictions
• Data protection requirements
• Third-party ownership restrictions
• Commercial confidentiality
• National or institutional restrictions
• Security concerns

In such cases, authors should provide a clear explanation in the Data Availability Statement rather than simply stating that data are unavailable.

📌 Authors' Responsibilities

Authors are responsible for:

• Providing an accurate Data Availability Statement where applicable
• Maintaining appropriate research records
• Sharing supporting data when ethically and legally permissible
• Protecting participant confidentiality
• Obtaining necessary permissions for data sharing
• Following repository and licensing requirements
• Ensuring that shared data are consistent with the published research
• Informing the journal of relevant restrictions on data access

🔍 Editorial Handling of Data Concerns

Editors may request clarification or supporting documentation where there are concerns regarding:

• Data availability
• Data integrity
• Inconsistencies between reported findings and available data
• Ethical restrictions
• Data ownership
• Inappropriate data sharing

Where serious concerns are identified, editorial processing may be suspended and the matter may be investigated under the relevant LQP policies.

📌 Research Integrity and Misconduct

Failure to disclose relevant restrictions, fabrication or falsification of data, intentional misrepresentation of data availability, or inappropriate manipulation of shared datasets may constitute research or publication misconduct.

Such concerns may be investigated under the Research Misconduct Policy and other applicable LQP publication ethics policies.

🔍 Applicability to LQP Journals

This Data Sharing Policy is a publisher-level policy of Lumina Quest Publishing (LQP) and applies to all journals currently published by LQP and any journals added to the LQP publishing program in the future.

LQP supports responsible data sharing as an important component of transparent and reproducible research while recognizing that legitimate ethical, legal, privacy, confidentiality, and intellectual property restrictions must always be respected.