Why use DataVault

The purpose of the DataVault is to provide you (PIs/data owners) with a long-term, low-cost, immutable, and safe storage solution for your research data, which is no longer active or not intended for publication.

The service provides:

• Secure data storage on the University’s archival storage platform

• Full encryption for sensitive data

• Restricted access (the current data owner or nominated individuals only)

• Permanent dataset identifier DOI (if required)

• Data discoverability through linkage to a Pure record

The service enables you to:

• Comply with funder and University requirements to preserve research data for the long-term
• Confidently store your data for retrieval at a future date

Who can deposit and retrieve data?

• You must be a University of Edinburgh Researcher with an active University login

• You must be the vault owner (usually the Principal Investigator) or a named delegate

• The DataVault will not ordinarily be available for storing student-generated research data.

How long will the data be stored?

• You will specify the period for which the data must be kept before being reviewed for deletion.

Next steps

• View our 'Getting started' DataVault video: How-to videos.
• Learn more about DataVault features from our blog post.

Alternatives

• If you need to make your data openly available and permanently archived you should consider using  our open access repository DataShare: DataShare open access data repository.
• For other options, please see our Working with sensitive data page.