Guides: *Reusable Content*: Data

Search Strategies

Search strategies to identify a data set:

Literature search: search a database relevant to your subject area for articles that have conducted related analysis and identify the datasets they used.
Use a tool specifically designed for finding data such as the Data Citation Index.
Going straight to a likely source: check to see if there is a particular organization or government agency that collects the type of data that you need. Try searching their website or publications.
Data archive search: Try searching through a large data archive, such as ICPSR or The Dataverse Project.

Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) This link opens in a new window
A free ICPSR account is required to download data. The account must be created and accessed every 6 months from on-campus or through the proxied link above. Visit this guide for more information.
Provides access to computerized social science data collected by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, a membership-based, not-for-profit organization serving member colleges and universities in the United States and abroad.
Harvard Dataverse This link opens in a new window
A large collection of social science research data from the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University.

Figshare
Scientific data
Open Access Directory's list of repositories
Extensive, multidisciplinary list hosted by School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College
REgistry of REsearch Data REpositories (re3data.org)
A global registry of research data repositories covering multidisciplinary research data
DataONE
Environmental data
Dryad Digital Repository
Scientific data
Data-PASS (Data Preservation Alliance for the Social Sciences)
Social science data, including opinion polls; voting records; surveys on family growth and income; social network data; government statistics and indices; and GIS data measuring human activity
GlobalStat
From the European University Institute, this database compiles publicly available data from over 100 sources, offering statistical information on globalization, sustainability, and human development. Users can search on a range of topics including income distribution, energy consumption, water resources, dwellings, migration, land use, food production, nutrition, school enrollment, and life expectancy and create data visualizations. From the chart displaying your desired information, see the "i" icon next to the title of that page to learn the data source (e.g., for "Fuel pump prices," it's World Bank, World Development Indicators).