Data sharing increases the ability of policymakers and researchers to analyse and translate data into reports, contributing to knowledge production and policy-making. In particular, combining data from multiple sources, as done in ETER, allows for comparisons across national and regional lines. Making data publicly available through data sharing discourages duplication of effort in data collection, and enourages accountability and transparency.

The National Statistical Authorities and/or national ministries have made and entered into a Cooperation Agreement (Link to Template PDF) with ETER, covering the following activities:

• Delivery of data to be included in ETER.
• Data validation and checking.
• Formatting of the data and their publication on the ETER website.
• Data dissemination activities.

In particular, in relation to data publication, the parties agreed that data delivered for the ETER project are public at the individual Higher Education Institution-level and will be made available to the public on the ETER website. These data are not subject to restrictions or authorisation, but users are requested to indicate the original data source. At the moment of the data collection, however, the data deliverer may—in exceptional and well-justified cases (e.g. binding legal requirements)—request to restrict publication of some of the data. Access to these data can be granted for research purposes and carrying statistical analyses on the condition that direct identification of statistical units in the final product is not possible. To this aim, the ETER Consortium has set up a registration system where data users agree to the indicated terms of usage