Legal Toolkit

In parallel to working with Nightingale Open Science partner institutions to build up datasets for the research community, we have refined and implemented a specific legal framework for the secure and ethical acceleration of open data for research.

In partnership with the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence Legal Accelerator Initiative, we are supporting the development of shared legal infrastructure to accelerate machine learning research aimed at improving clinical care. The Nightingale Open Science toolkit consists of:

A template IRB that can be referenced to begin a research project in which one of the major aims is to make the data securely accessible to a broad group of researchers. This is a template that aims to provide a starting point for a collaboration between an institution and Nightingale Open Science, and can be modified as necessary. Specific language relevant to Nightingale Open Science can be found in sections 7 and 17.
The Nightingale Open Science Data Use Agreement which simplifies requirements compared with most data use agreements in use today while maintaining core structure and provisions.

A core piece of making data securely available to researchers is the ability to streamline and refine necessary legal agreements in a timely manner. The COVID-19 crisis has made obvious what many researchers already knew: necessary and important legal agreements can slow their access to data significantly. Our team at Nightingale Open Science openly shares these resources with the community in the hope of accelerating research efforts worldwide.

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