Reasons Against Publishing FAIR Data

“FAIR” means making research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable to maximize transparency and reuse. So, researchers are often faced with the question of whether they should publish their data in a FAIR-compliant manner. There are some reasons against doing so, but are they good reasons or bad?

1) I fear that my data could be used to pre-empt my research

This concern is understandable—other laboratories could, of course, use your data and complete further research more quickly than you.

Therefore, data can be published under embargo for an appropriate period of time. This means that it is already stored in accordance with the FAIR principles, but only certain people, such as you, your collaboration partners, reviewers, or journal editors, can access the data. This is even advisable, at least for the duration of the peer review, as the data is part of the review and revisions might still be necessary.

However, any embargo should generally be limited in time. Once the publication is released, the underlying data should be made available. This is also expected, for example, by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; German Research Foundation) [1].

An indefinite embargo is only considered in special cases, such as for the protection of personal data. However, this is likely to occur only rarely in the chemical industry.

2) I cannot share my data because there is a patent application or confidentiality agreement for research purposes.

This case can also be resolved with an embargo. This allows you to publish data FAIR without allowing access to the data itself, see 1)

The original data remains protected by an embargo until the patent or classification as “secret” expires. The DFG also accepts this exceptional case.

3) This is my data, I don’t want to share it.

Many researchers view the data they generate through their research as something personal. However, publicly funded research always belongs to the public. This is generally the case for funding from federal ministries, such as the DFG or the EU. And even as an employee at a university, your research is financed by the general public.

What is more, today’s researchers stand on the shoulders of giants, without whose publications today’s research would not be possible. There is a long history of open data; continue writing it.

European copyright law generally considers raw numerical data to be unprotectable [2] (for Germany, see also Hartmann 2025 [3]).

4) My Data isn’t FAIR yet. It is too time-consuming to make it FAIR.

There are not only FAIR and unFAIR. There is a whole spectrum of FAIRness. So, every step in this direction counts. Moreover, if you want to reuse the data yourself or in the working group later on, you will have to process it anyway, because otherwise it is incomprehensible and useless. Making it FAIR is actually only a small step.

FAIR4Chem awardee Robin Lenz put it this way: “The greatest benefit of well-managed data is therefore probably our own. Making our data openly accessible afterwards is then hardly any additional effort.” [4]

5) I am afraid that other researchers will find errors in my data.

Of course, your data should not contain any errors. But humans make mistakes. Did you work carefully? Then you have nothing to blame yourself for. What is needed here is a different approach to mistakes.

In safety-critical industries such as aviation and healthcare, they are one step ahead. There, people recognize that mistakes are inevitable, so there is a culture of error management [5]. If mistakes can be openly admitted, follow-up mistakes and problems can be avoided. This is part of quality management.

In science, retractions are still feared, even though they are a normal part of scientific self-correction according to the Cope guidelines. Publishers are still implementing them slowly, but at least there is increasing transparency regarding the reasons for retractions.

It is not necessarily true that careers suffer as a result, as Jaivime Evaristo, an assistant professor from Utrecht, The Netherlands, writes: “Retracting my paper was painful. But it helped me grow as a scientist.” [6]

6) I’m afraid that sloppiness will be exposed.

Check whether you can still correct your negligence. As a scientist, you are committed to good scientific practice [7].

Sometimes you want to work carefully, but you are under time pressure. “Publish or perish” is a system that is difficult to escape. Most scientists say they want “quality over quantity” in publications, “less is more”.

Well, be part of the solution: only publish meaningful results, encourage researchers in your field to do the same, and advocate for it publicly. Do you have influence, for example, on appointment committees? Make sure that quality counts more than the length of the list.

CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) is campaigning against current practices and for higher quality, and more and more institutions are joining it. At a time when paper mills are undermining the entire system of quantitative metrics and threatening to bring it down, more and more researchers are calling for a rethink [8].

7) I’m afraid that manipulations will be discovered.

There is no excuse for this. If you have “fudged” data, it is a disgrace to science.

And no, not everyone does this! Your data is not needed. If you want to be a scientist, then stick to the rules of good scientific practice. If not, then you’d better find a job far away from academic research and hope that your fraud doesn’t get exposed.

“If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”
—Jim Rohn (American motivational speaker and author)

References

[1] DFG, Leitlinien zur Sicherung guter wissenschaftlicher Praxis, Leitlinie 13, (accessed November 25, 2025)

[2] Martin R.F. Senftleben, Study on EU copyright and related rights and access to and reuse of data, European Commission 2022.

[3] Ellen Euler, Thomas Hartmann, Julia Wildgans, Creative Commons Public License (CCPL): Kommentar und Handbuch für die Rechtspraxis, B. Wissenschaft (Open Science), Carl Grossmann Publishers, Berlin, Germany, 2025.

[4] Theo Bender, Robin Lenz, Interview with Robin Lenz from the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, the 2024 award winner, NFDI4Chem website 2024. (accessed November 25, 2025)

[5] Michael Zenz, Thomas Weiß, Irren ist menschlich – daraus lernen lebensrettend, To Err Is Human—Learning From Errors Saves Lives, Deutsches Ärzteblatt Ausgabe 16/2009.

[6] Jaivime Evaristo, Retracting my paper was painful. But it helped me grow as a scientist, Science 2023. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.caredit.adh1703

[7] Good Research Practice, DFG website (accessed November 25, 2025)

[8] Bernhard Sabel, Dan Larhammar, Reformation of science publishing: the Stockholm Declaration, R. Soc. Open Sci. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.251805

The Author

Theo Bender

After completing his studies, the author founded a publishing house for media literature, where he published doctoral theses, among other things. In the process, he has encountered some hair-raising mistakes.

He is now responsible for strategic communication for the NFDI4Chem infrastructure consortium and is a member of the “Error Culture” working group of the NFDI’s “Education & Training” section.

The NFDI4Chem consortium is funded by the DFG under PN 441958208.