News

2025 marked a year of important milestones for DANS. We celebrated our twentieth anniversary, witnessed the results of many years of collaboration in national and international projects, and continued to strengthen our infrastructure, services, and support for researchers and data professionals.

To best serve our community of research supporters, policymakers and researchers at the next DANS Open Day 2026, we would like to ask for your input. Have your say in shaping the programme!

This year DANS celebrates its twentieth anniversary. A perfect moment to look back at the journey we have taken together with researchers and institutions, and at what has grown from it. In this jubilee series, we revisit key milestones and connect them with the present.

In this first article, we highlight an impressive story of growth: from 10,000 datasets in 2009 to over 329,000 today.

The DANS Deposit Manual has been thoroughly revised.ย This updated version offers researchers and data professionals improved guidance on preparing, depositing and maintaining research data in the DANS Data Stations.ย 

Itโ€™s 1985. Take On Me by Norwegian band A-Ha is topping the charts, telephones still weigh a kilo, youth unemployment is sky-high, and squattersโ€™ riots are a frequent occurrence in Amsterdam. In the midst of these turbulent times, Marion walks into the Steinmetz Archive โ€“ the predecessor of DANS. Exactly 40 years later we celebrate her well deserved retirement.

On 1 June 2005, DANS was founded as a joint initiative of the KNAW and NWO. Over the past two decades, DANS has developed into the national centre of expertise for sustainable access to and reuse of research data.

The English spoken Essentials 4 Data Support course will start on 18 September 2025.

DANS maintains a strong national presence and is acknowledged internationally as an innovative contributor in the field of research data management. These are among the findings of an independent review committee in its recent evaluation of the institute. The committee observes that DANS has played a meaningful role in advancing the professionalisation of data management, both in the Netherlands and internationally. The evaluation, conducted in June 2024, covers the period from 2017 to 2023. The full report, along with responses from DANS, the Scientific Advisory Board for DANS (WAR), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and the Dutch Research Council (NWO), has now been made publicly available.