Who "owns" research data?

When offering guidance to researchers on research data management, questions sometimes arise as to who may decide on the reuse of research data, to whom the data may be passed on or whether and when it should be published. Researchers frequently inquire about the actual "ownership" of research data. A more accurate way to phrase this question is "Who has what rights to research data?", as there is no ownership of digital research data.

This text serves to outline various (legal) positions and aims to make them more accessible to researchers, particularly those at German universities. While texts in German addressing these topics are available (see reference list and recommended readings), there has been a lack of an English overview thus far. This text pertains to the German legal framework. Understanding these positions is crucial, for instance, in establishing documented agreements on usage rights to research data, as recommended by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).  

The author would like to thank Felix Magin from the University of Konstanz for his valuable input on the content, and Pierre-Emmanuele Roy from Freie Universität Berlin for his contributions to the linguistic enhancements. FM: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0455-4436; PER: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-3645-1383

A German version of this text is available: Wem "gehören" Forschungsdaten?. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11077411