Joel Herndon
Director, Center for Data and Visualization Sciences
Duke University
Jake Carlson
Associate University Librarian for Research, Collections and Outreach
University at Buffalo
Ishwar Chandramouliswaran
Lead Program Director
National Institutes of Health
Plato Smith
Program Director
National Science Foundation
Federal public access policies obligate institutions to manage and share research data, but the cost of meeting these obligations has remained largely invisible in institutional budgets and in agency policy design. The Realities of Academic Data Sharing (RADS) Initiative has spent five years making these costs more legible. Phase 1, funded by the National Science Foundation, produced the first empirical estimates of institutional and researcher expenses for public access, finding average combined institutional costs of roughly $2.5 million annually, with wide variation across institutions. Phase 2, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, extended the work across eleven institutions to examine how different organizational structures, service models, and infrastructure choices drive costs—and what researchers actually spend at the project level. This session presents the initiative’s findings, followed by a moderated discussion with representatives from federal research agencies. Panelists will respond directly to the cost data and speak to agency priorities for data management and sharing in a constrained funding environment. Substantial time is reserved for audience discussion of what the findings mean for institutional planning, budget advocacy, and future policy.
