Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A researcher searching re3data for an oceanographic-data repository in their discipline.
- Is an instance
A funder citing re3data as the authoritative list of repositories that satisfy deposit policy.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A general web search engine is not re3data.
- Not an instance
FAIRsharing is a related but distinct registry — broader in scope (standards, databases, policies).
Editorial commentary
re3data.org (Registry of Research Data Repositories) is a global, discipline-agnostic registry that catalogues research data repositories — it is a discovery and comparison tool for finding a repository, not a repository itself. It launched in 2012 and, per its own about page, is managed and operated by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Purdue University Libraries, with strategic direction from the re3data Working Group and day-to-day curation by an Editorial Board, in partnership with DataCite. Multiple independent sources converge on the registry indexing well over 3,000 repositories, though the exact live count should be checked directly at re3data.org rather than treated as a fixed figure.
What each entry records
A re3data entry carries structured metadata about the repository itself, not about individual datasets within it: institution and country of operation, subject/discipline coverage, content types accepted, access conditions (open, restricted, embargoed), certifications held (such as CoreTrustSeal), which persistent-identifier systems the repository mints or supports, API availability, and language coverage. Filtering across “over two dozen facets,” per re3data’s own documentation, is what makes it useful as a comparison tool rather than a flat directory — a researcher or data steward can filter to, for example, “certified, discipline-specific, API-accessible” repositories in a field rather than browsing an alphabetical list.
Where it sits relative to related repository terms
re3data is the discovery layer above the repository-type taxonomy: it lists both generalist repositories and domain (discipline-specific) repositories, and separately flags which of those have earned trusted digital repository certification — certification is an orthogonal axis re3data records, not a fourth repository type. Funder and journal deposit policies frequently phrase their requirement as “deposit in a re3data-listed repository,” using re3data’s own listing as the practical proxy for “a real, discoverable research data repository,” which is why accuracy and completeness of a repository’s re3data entry matters operationally, not just for browsing.
Worked example / counter-example
A marine biologist searching re3data for oceanographic-data repositories can filter to discipline plus certification status and find a small number of qualifying, field-specific options rather than searching the open web. By contrast, a general web search engine is not a substitute for re3data — it surfaces pages that mention data, not vetted, metadata-complete repository records, and a funder’s “deposit in a re3data-listed repository” clause is not satisfied by an arbitrary web-findable file host.
References
- re3data.org/about (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Purdue University Libraries).
- Pampel, H., Vierkant, P. et al., “Making Research Data Repositories Visible: The re3data.org Registry,” PLOS ONE 8(11), 2013.
Also known as
Registry of Research Data Repositories
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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