The UK's Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has won the tender from EPSRC to operate the UK National Chemical Database Service from 2013 to 2017. The service, providing access to selected data sources to UK academic researchers, was launched on January 2, 2013 with an initial set of commercial data sources, including the Cambridge Structural Database, the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database, ACD/I-Lab2, SPRESIWeb and Accelrys' Available Chemicals Directory.
Additional commercial data sources will be added as the service develops. As part of the service, the RSC will also develop a chemistry data repository for UK academia, and build tools, models and services on this data store to increase the value and impact of researchers' funded work.
At a time when funding agencies, including EPSRC, are encouraging publication under open access, and there is an increasing drive towards research data preservation and providing access to open data, the National Chemical Database Service is expected to provide its user community with a domain repository to increase the discoverability and reusability of the data.
This data store will be developed through the lifetime of the contract period, in partnership with the academic community.
