Find research data and environmental data

Page reviewed:  15/04/2025

This page contains tips for those who want to use open data for research, environmental analysis or studies. You can also contact the library for help and tips on how to search for data.

Data from research and environmental monitoring that is made openly available on the internet is a resource for students, researchers and people working with environmental assessment. Scientific data is made available through repositories, data portals, and scientific publications, for example.

Researchdata.se

In the web portal Researchdata.se, provided by the Swedish National Data Service (SND), you can search and browse research data from several different subject areas. SLU is part of the consortium governing SND, and employees at SLU can publish data via SND.

Data from SLU's environmental monitoring and assessment

SLU's environmental monitoring and assessment is a broad and varied activity that includes sampling out at sea with the research vessel Svea, forest inventory, and analysis of soil samples from Swedish agriculture. In SLU's environmental data catalogue you can search and browse open data from the environmental monitoring and assessment programmes.

More ways to find data

There are several search services that allow you to search multiple repositories and other data sources simultaneously.

  • Datacite. At Datacite, you can search all repositories that publish data with the persistent identifier DOI (digital object identifier).
  • Dimensions. A search service that connects publications, datasets, policy documents, patents, as well as other types of material.
  • Google dataset search. Google has a search service for data which, in addition to searching repositories, also searches for data on other types of websites.
  • Sweden's data portal. A service from the Agency for Digital Government (DIGG), which enables the public to search among data provided by Swedish public and private organizations.
  • Web of Science. A good way to find research data is to search for relevant scientific articles. The journals often require the underlying open data to be linked from the article. In Web of Science, you can also use the Data Citation Index database, which covers a large number of data repositories.

In addition to various data repositories, SLU data is published on e.g. websites and through various data portals. Here are some examples:

  • Artportalen (Swedish Species Observation System). A system for reporting and searching for species observations in Sweden.
  • Data hosting for environmental monitoring data (in Swedish). On behalf of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, SLU is the data host for certain data collected through national and regional environmental monitoring.
  • ICOS Carbon Portal. ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) provides standardised and open greenhouse gas data from more than 170 measurement stations, two of which are located at SLU Svartberget Research Station.
  • National Forest Data Lab. A collaborative project between the Swedish Forestry Agency and SLU that, among other things, makes forest data available.
  • SITES data portal. SITES is an infrastructure for research stations that includes five SLU stations.

Below is a selection of major data repositories. More can be found in a registry called re3data.

  • DataONE. A community-driven program providing access to data across multiple repositories with earth and environmental data.
  • Dryad. An open repository for research data. Previously focused on data from ecology and evolutionary biology, but now open to data from all research areas.
  • EDI Data Portal. A data portal developed and operated by the Environmental Data Initiative (EDI), funded by the National Science Foundation (a U.S. governmental agency).
  • EMBL-EBI. EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) maintains a range of freely available and up-to-date molecular data resources.
  • EU European Data Portal. A official portal for data from the public sector available in public data portals in EU countries.
  • Figshare. An open repository with research data from all research areas.
  • GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility). An international project that makes data on the distribution of species freely available.
  • Harvard Dataverse. Hosts both data and code from researchers all over the world
  • PANGEA. A data repository within the earth and environmental sciences, hosted by the Alfred-Wegener-Institute and the University of Bremen and supported by the EU.
  • Registerforskning.se. A website from the Swedish Research Council. Provides a metadata tool called RUT (Register Utiliser Tool) that enables efficient searching and matching of metadata in registers.
  • World Data Centre for Soils. Provides a focal point for soil-related collections and information services, including geo-referenced databases.
  • Zenodo. An open repository for research data.

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