Recherche Data Gouv France's National Research Data Platform

Overview

Recherche Data Gouv is France's national ecosystem and platform dedicated to the management, sharing, and opening of French research data. Inaugurated in July 2022 by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, it serves the national scientific community with a sovereign, multidisciplinary data repository and a federated network of regional and thematic competence centers.

History and Founding

The creation of Recherche Data Gouv was committed to in France's first National Plan for Open Science (2018–2021) and reaffirmed in the Second National Plan for Open Science launched in July 2021. The platform was formally inaugurated in July 2022. Development and management were entrusted to the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), which serves as the legal entity operating the platform. Full funding for the platform's first three years was provided by the National Fund for Open Science.

Structure and Collections

The Recherche Data Gouv ecosystem comprises a central platform for the preservation, publication, and discovery of datasets (including a repository and metadata catalog), and a national federation of competence centers providing support to research teams across France. The competence centers are organized geographically as data clusters and thematically as disciplinary reference centers. The platform supports FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles and is positioned as a sovereign alternative to publisher-controlled data repositories. All data collected is stored on servers hosted by INRAE in France within a sovereign cloud infrastructure.

Access and Usage

The platform is freely accessible at recherche.data.gouv.fr and is available in both French and English. Researchers from French public institutions can deposit datasets and establish institutional spaces on the platform. Datasets receive DOIs and standardized metadata to ensure citability and long-term reuse.