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Data sharing and COVID-19– the pandemic is changing the way scientists work and talk to each other. Many are moving away from traditional means, choosing to share their work quickly and openly. In this blog, the Early Career Researchers advisory board at Wellcome Open Research discuss how COVID-19 is changing science.

The last few months since the onset of the SARS-Cov2 pandemic have been difficult for us all. Having our labs and work spaces temporarily shut down, and managing an even more precarious work-life balance than usual, we’ve all had to adapt and acclimatise to doing research from home. However, despite the unparalleled destabilization and uncertainty, the universal response of the international research community to this health crisis has been heroic and inspiring. The rapidity and transparency of the publishing of the SARS-Cov2 viral sequence facilitated, both diagnostic testing and immediate international efforts towards vaccine development. Extensive use of pre-print servers, and the subsequent and commendable response by most publishing journals to allow immediate and open access to research content on COVID19, is enabling crowd-sourced science and progress at breath-taking speed. It is immensely encouraging and uplifting to witness the universal adoption of open science principles, as articulated in Wellcome’s data sharing statement and the European Data Portal for COVID, to the immediate benefit of human health.

An impressive case is the community generated and open data project by the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) initiative.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, HCA researchers from around the world pooled datasets from various human organs to examine the expression of SARS-CoV2 entry receptors. The analysis and data, which provided valuable insights on COVID-19 transmission and infection, were provided in a publicly available web portal for the scientific and clinical communities to access, download and query. This open and user-friendly manner also allows scientists to easily view and query genes of interest through the web portal.

Data portals, such as the HCA initiative, provide an exemplary standard of FAIR data; Findable, Accessible, Interpretable and Re-useable, and the current crisis has accentuated the value of this principle within the research community. But as we face a new way of working, with many research labs worldwide closed to all but essential research, and social distancing imposing heavily on our preferred communication methods, FAIR data seems even more critical to our community to maintain both the momentum of research and the interconnectedness of researchers. When the crisis is over and researchers have the opportunity to return to “normality”, we hope that as a community we will build on this experience with a fresh outlook on communication, transparency, open access and data sharing. For instance, it seems obvious in the face of a global crisis that there should be no embargos on research and that their presence might even be construed as immoral or considered profiteering. But can the same not be said for all health research?

Global estimates suggest more than 1000 children die every day from malaria worldwide, and millions upon millions of people die from cancer each year. An accelerated solution to global problems such as these must equally be warranted through a more open and collaborative approach to data-sharing and research publication.

We are a generation of scientists shaped by computational and technological advancement and we must ensure that our research outputs keep in line with this expansion. Furthermore, we as scientists have a duty to ensure that the public global community, the true share-holders of our data, benefit in the most timely and effective way possible. From rare diseases to global pandemics, open science and data sharing should become a gold standard of which we can be proud.