What Is a Research Data Commons?

Q: Why Use a Commons for Research?

A research data commons brings together people, skills, data, and related resources such as storage, compute, software, and models into one system. By providing integrated resources and easy-to-use interfaces, it enables researchers to speed up their existing research, and to undertake research that wasn’t possible before.

Explore the concept of a research data commons and its benefits for researchers, and discover examples from both Australian and international contexts.

Higher-degree researchers (HDRs) / PhD candidates
Early and mid-career researchers (EMCR)
Senior researchers
Infrastructure providers (including research facilities)

After reading this resource, you will be able to:

understand the concept of a research data commons and its components
explore Australian and international examples of research data commons
learn from real-world instances that demonstrate the impact of research data commons.

Australian Research Data Commons 2025, What Is a Research Data Commons?, viewed 19 April 2026, https://ardc.edu.au/resource/what-is-a-research-data-commons/.

Australian Research Data Commons. (2025). What is a research data commons? https://ardc.edu.au/resource/what-is-a-research-data-commons/.

Australian Research Data Commons. “What Is a Research Data Commons?” 2025, https://ardc.edu.au/resource/what-is-a-research-data-commons/.

Australian Research Data Commons. What is a research data commons? [Internet]. [updated 2025; cited 2026 Apr 19]. Available from: https://ardc.edu.au/resource/what-is-a-research-data-commons/.

Australian Research Data Commons. “What Is a Research Data Commons?” 2025. https://ardc.edu.au/resource/what-is-a-research-data-commons/.

Australian Research Data Commons. “What Is a Research Data Commons.” Accessed: Apr. 19, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://ardc.edu.au/resource/what-is-a-research-data-commons/.

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What Is a Commons?

The term “commons” derives from the English idea of land held in common and was popularised in the modern sense as a way of referring to shared resources by the ecologist Garrett Hardin in an influential 1968 article called “The Tragedy of the Commons“.

The Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom in her book Governing the Commons, revisited this idea and demonstrated instead that there do exist practical algorithms for the collective use of a limited common resource.

The idea of the commons has since been taken up outside the domain of economics and applied to a wide range of domains. More recently it has been applied in the digital domain.

Why Use a Commons for Research?

A research data commons brings together people, skills, data, and related resources such as storage, compute, software, and models into one system. By providing integrated resources and easy-to-use interfaces, it enables researchers to speed up their existing research, and to undertake research that wasn’t possible before.

A diagram listing the 6 elements of a research data commons, namely people, skills, data, storage, models and compute — The components of a research data commons, according to the ARDC

Functions of a Research Data Commons

Research data commons can be used in numerous ways by the research community, industry and government. We see research data commons as having 3 key functions:

Collaborative hub for data-driven research

A research data commons acts as a central hub where experts from diverse fields converge to build a community around shared problems. It brings together data, computational resources, models and specialised tools, through secure environments supported by experts in digital research infrastructure. It supports researchers to upskill in digital research methods. Researchers collaborate, analyse, and share insights, accelerating scientific progress and informing evidence-based policies.

Infrastructure for knowledge exchange and creation

A research data commons provides easy access to existing curated datasets, stored securely, and connected to the computing power needed to analyse them. It’s a place where researchers are able to harness the potential of bringing data together and establish the standards and governance arrangements to collaborate over the data. It’s a practical ecosystem that empowers investigations. Policymakers and business partners can rely on trustedaccess reliable information, researchers can validate hypotheses, and research institutions can contribute to collective knowledge.

Driving impact through data accessibility

Beyond technical infrastructure, a research data commons democratises access. It ensures that valuable data isn’t siloed away but is connected to the tools that enable transformative research. By facilitating efficient data sharing with trusted, interoperable data, it fuels discoveries that shape our understanding of the world.

International Research Commons

There are many examples of research commons across the globe, although not all are labelled as such. They take many different forms, and span a range from specific topics to every research domain within a geographic area.

Here are some examples:

Global Open Research Commons

Through the Research Data Alliance, the Global Open Research Commons Interest Group has been working to reach a shared understanding of what a ‘commons’ is in the research data space. The group has explored what functionality, coverage and characterics a ‘commons’ requires, and how this can be coordinated at a global level.

The Group defines a research commons as a global trusted ecosystem that provides seamless access to high quality interoperable research outputs and services.

One of the outputs of the group is a “Typology” (2023) of the essential elements in a Commons. Learn more about the typology and how the elements are defined.

The Impact of Research Data Commons

Here are 2 examples of the impact of research data commons.

National Cancer Institute (NCI) Genomic Data Commons

The NCI Genomic Data Commons provides the cancer research community with a unified repository and cancer knowledge base that enables data sharing across cancer genomic studies in support of precision medicine.

The Genomic Data Commons contains over 2.9 PB of curated, harmonised cancer genomics data from over 60 projects (as of February 2021). Each month over 50,000 unique researchers use the system and over 1.5 PB of data are accessed^[1].

The Genomic Data Commons provides many benefits for the research community, and is acknowledged in over 122 publications.

Overall, the NCI Genomic Data Commons enhances our ability to understand genomic changes, tumour complexity, and drug resistance, ultimately benefiting cancer patients worldwide.

Visit the NCI Genomic Data Commons.

EcoCommons

EcoCommons is a world-first collaborative commons for analysing and modelling ecological and environmental challenges. Developed with ARDC co-investment and expertise, it contains highly sought-after data, community-driven methods and computational resources, while enabling better collaborations beyond discipline, institutional and jurisdictional boundaries.

The platform is a springboard for collaboration between researchers and decision makers concerned with biodiversity including ecosystem services, biosecurity, natural resource management and climate-related impacts and responses. EcoCommons is being enhanced through the ARDC’s Planet Research Data Commons.

Visit EcoCommons, and read more about its impact.

Research Data Commons in Australia

In Australia, the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) was established in 2019 to create and maintain research data commons for Australian researchers. That is, the organisation is named after the entities it is trying to bring into existence. We facilitate programs and partnerships that provide the research community and industry access to nationally significant, data-intensive digital research infrastructure, platforms, skills and collections of high-quality data.

A range of research data commons have already been developed through partnerships with the ARDC. These include:

Other organisations in Australia also lead and maintain research data commons. The Australian BioCommons is “an ambitious digital infrastructure capability that is enhancing Australian research in its ability to understand the molecular basis of life across environmental, agricultural and biomedical science”. It is currently establishing the Australian Cardiovascular disease Data Commons through one of its activities.

Research Data Commons at the ARDC

At the ARDC, we established 3 national-scale Thematic Research Data Commons in partnership with the research community to meet Australia’s research needs through long-term, enduring digital infrastructure.

Explore the ARDC’s Thematic Research Data Commons:

Medical professional looking at computer screens with brain scans on them

People Research Data Commons

National-scale data infrastructure for health research and research translation

Exploreabout People Research Data Commons

Planet Research Data Commons

National-scale data infrastructure for earth and environmental science research and decision making

Exploreabout Planet Research Data Commons

A thin layer of water reflecting the silhouettes of a group of people standing on it at dusk

HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons

National-scale data infrastructure for HASS and Indigenous research data communities

Exploreabout HASS and Indigenous Research Data Commons

Learn more about our Thematic Research Data Commons.

References

Learn more about Research Data Commons:

Grossman RL. Ten lessons for data sharing with a data commons. Sci Data. 2023 Mar 6;10(1):120. DOI: 10.1038/s41597-023-02029-x. Jump back
Barker M, Wilkinson R, Treloar A. The Australian Research Data Commons. Data Science Journal. 2019;18. DOI: 10.5334/dsj-2019-044.
Jones S, Leggott M, Lopez Albacete J, Pascu C, Payne K, Schouppe M, Treloar A, Global Open Research Commons IG. GORC IG: Typology and Definitions (1.01). Zenodo. 2023. DOI: 10.15497/RDA00087.

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