Over the past two decades, open access advocates have made significant gains in securing public access to the formal outputs of scholarly communication (e.g. peer reviewed journal articles) – through a combination of public policy-making, funder mandates and changing the norms and practices of researchers in different fields. The same period has seen the rise...

This briefing paper presents the current state of open research data across academic disciplines. It describes disciplinary characteristics inhibiting a larger take - up of open research data mandates . Additionally, it presents the current strategies and policies established by funders, institutions, journals and data service providers alongside general data policies.