How to build a data repository? What does a data repository need to know and how should we find out about it? What are the difficulties and how prepared are the potential users?

The Eötvös Loránd Research Network (ELKH) is developing a central data repository to provide for long-term storage and archiving of research data produced by ELKH researchers. In order to best serve the research community, a complex survey was carried out to identify the needs of researchers related to archiving. This paper presents the results of a survey realized in the framework of the ELKH Data Repository Platform (ARP) project, and shows how they were used in the process of developing the repository.

The survey explored the practices and needs of researchers within the ELKH related to the management, storing and sharing of research data as well as their experiences concerning the use of repositories. Via questionnaires and interviews we reached nearly two hundred researchers—individuals and teams—covering all the institutions and disciplines represented in the research network. The survey is thus the most comprehensive data collection ever undertaken on research data management in Hungary.

This paper presents the current situation of data management in the largest Hungarian research network in the context of international trends with respect to open science. In presenting the state of affairs in the largest nation-wide research infrastructure, we discuss the challenges and gaps as well as some good practices drawing on the accounts and opinions of researchers. Finally, we show how the results of the survey were translated in terms of software specifications in order to support the IT requirements framework of the project