Recommendations on the handling of research data exist from various sides and with varying degrees of commitment.

In 1998, the DFG provided the basis for establishing sustainable research data management in Germany with its memorandum on "Safeguarding Good Research Practice". With "Recommendation 7: Safeguarding and Retaining Primary Research Data", it provided initial food for thought on the more professional handling of research data. The memorandum was updated in 2013 and replaced by the code "Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice" in 2019. The DFG also adopted separate guidelines on handling research data in 2015.

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In Germany, a National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) is currently being established, which envisages a distributed approach with various competence centers. This recommendation originates from the Council for Information Infrastructures (RfII) and was officially adopted in 2018 by the Joint Science Conference (GWK) of the federal and state governments.

At the European level, the "Open Research Data Pilot" introduced by the European Commission in Horizon 2020 is the main driver for open, post-usable research data.

Individual publishers have introduced data policies for journals. They regulate what should happen to the data on which a submitted publication is based. The recommendations range from softly-worded to requirements to make the underlying data accessible to others. If you are free to choose where to publish your data, you can use OPARU free of charge as a member of Ulm University.

Disciplines also adopt recommendations on how to deal with research data. A first orientation for such recommendations can be the compilation on the DFG website on research data.