These recommendations were last updated on June 15, 2020

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Around the world, research related to COVID-19 is being undertaken at unprecedented rates and rapid sharing of early research outputs at the international level is critically important. Many governments and funders are requiring immediate open access to COVID-19 outputs in the form of preprints, data and so on. With over 5,000 repositories around the world providing open access to data, articles, pre-prints and other valuable products of research, the international repository network represents critical research infrastructure. A coordinated and interoperability approach across repositories will to ensure that COVID-19 resources are widely available and discoverable.


Basic recommended metadata elements

Some regions and disciplines already have more comprehensive metadata requirements in place for their funded research. In order to support discovery, reuse, and confidence, COAR is recommending, as a basic minimum, the following metadata for COVID-19 resources in repositories (and other types of platforms):

  • Title, creator, date

  • Keyword tag in subject: COVID-19

  • CC license (CC0, CC-BY)

  • Institutional affiliation, e.g. ROR (In “dc.description.sponsorship” or “dc:contributor” field)

  • if applicable – Funder name or ID, e.g. FundRef  (In “Funding Reference” or “dc.description.sponsorship” or “dc:contributor” field)

  • if applicable – Grant or project name/number (In “Funding Reference” or “dc.description.sponsorship” or “dc:contributor” field)


For those who do not have access to a repository, deposit your research results into Zenodo, arXiv, or another appropriate open repository.