Research Guides: How to Find Data: Data Repositories

What are Data Repositories

When researchers compile data for a project they often deposit their data in a repository to share their work to fellow researchers.

There are thousands of data repositories available, and many of them are subject specific. This guide lists a few major repositories.

Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
ICPSR is an archive of behavioral and social science data; most datasets are raw, primary data drawn from surveys, censuses, and administrative records. Several search tools are available for datasets or browse for them by categories such as topic, series, geography, investigator, or international. After finding a data set, users can click on the title to find its Study Home Page.
Special topics include: Aging, Arts and Culture, Criminal Justice, Health and Mental Health, Race and Ethnicity.
To download datasets you must set up an account using your Davidson email. Davidson is a member of ICPSR; use of the data is restricted to Davidson students, faculty and staff engaged in non-commercial research projects.

Global Health Observatory data repository
More than 1000 health indicators from the World Health Organization.
Dryad
Dryad is a curated general-purpose repository that makes the data underlying scientific publications discoverable, freely reusable, and citable. Dryad has integrated data submission for a growing list of journals; submission of data from other publications is also welcome.
Google Dataset Search
This search engine allows you to search across thousands of data repositories online. Search results are connected to Google Scholar and highlight whenever a dataset is used in scholarship. Currently a Beta version.