DANS was founded in 2005 to promote sustained access to digital research data. DANS provides three online services for sustained archiving and reusing research data: EASY, DataverseNL and NARCIS. The institute furthermore provides training & consultancy in research data management and certification of archives, and carries out research on sustained access to digital information.
EASY is an online archiving system with over 117,000 thousand datasets (December 2019) from research completed by researchers and institutes. Researchers can deposit their data in EASY; institutes can opt for automated deposits.
Via EASY, researchers can also search for, download and reuse datasets of other researchers. EASY is certified according to the accreditations of the Data Seal of Approval, Core Trust Seal and Nestor Seal. Most datasets are openly accessible. easy.dans.knaw.nl
DataverseNL is a repository service offered by DANS to universities, higher education and other research institutions, for the use of their researchers to store, share and register research data online. DataverseNL is used by 14 participating organisations. DataverseNL is built upon a repository platform developed by Harvard University. The platform is used worldwide. The participants can use DataverseNL in line with their data management policies and requirements www.dataverse.nl).
NARCIS is the national aggregator and portal for research information, and provides access to over 2 million publications in repositories of all Dutch universities, KNAW, NWO and various scientific institutes, and over 250,000 datasets in various data archives, including DANS itself (December 2019). NARCIS provides descriptions of research projects, experts and research institutes in the Netherlands. The Dutch national information is offered for international aggregation to about 20 providers (including Google Scholar,
Microsoft Academic Search, OpenAire, etc.) DANS closely collaborates with connected universities and other institutions, to make and keep NARCIS as up-to-date and complete as possible. www.narcis.nl.
In addition to these services, DANS provides training and consultancy to a wide range of parties, especially on certified long-term preservation and aspects of research data management. DANS expands its expertise by participating in national and international data-infrastructure and related projects and by carrying out its own Research & Innovation programme.