The Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) is a joint program of NSF and NIH that, since 2002, has supported integration of theoretical and experimental neuroscience through collaborative research projects typically involving two to five senior investigators. CRCNS has recently begun to offer funding for a new class of proposals focused on the sharing of data and other resources.

NSF solicited comments on data sharing from the research community in March 2007. Responses from the community suggested that while sharing of data, code, stimuli, and other resources are all highly desirable, sharing of experimental data represented a particularly acute need, which was not likely to be filled without leadership from within the research community, support by from funding agencies, and a concerted, organized effort. A first round of data sharing proposals was awarded in August 2007, and the first shared data resources will be made available publicly in March 2008. A broader call for proposals for data sharing and corpora development was included in a new release of the CRCNS solicitation in November 2007, to support the preparation and deployment of data, software, code bases, stimuli, or other resources that would be useful to a broad community of researchers.