In determining the new access fees, UK Biobank’s underlying approach to cost recovery remains unchanged. UK Biobank seeks to recover only the incremental costs of servicing an access application: it does not seek to recover the cost of development and management of the UK Biobank data resource, which already runs into hundreds of millions £GBP. The rationale for this new fee structure is that:
- The three tiers of fees are based broadly on the size of the respective datasets (and the respective costs of their distribution) and on UK Biobank’s analysis of common researcher usage of these datasets, as UK Biobank is keen to ensure that access to its core level dataset remains at a cost level which is comparable to that under the old fee structure.
- The fee per collaborating institution is intended to cover the administrative costs of adding an institution to an application.
- The transition to a periodic charge – namely for an initial 3-year period, renewable for further periods – is to provide researchers with more flexibility, and reflects research practice and also takes into account the request of provision of updated and new data from UK Biobank.
Reduced access fees and financial support are available for student and early-career researchers and researchers from lower income countries.
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