Research datasets need to be easy to find if they are to achieve their potential impact.

The impact of research data is now of definitive importance for universities, funders and disciplines themselves. Similar to the wave of preprint repositories established for journal articles that helped preserve access to papers in disciplines not otherwise catered for, we are now seeing a steady stream of institutional data repositories emerging. Alex Ball provides the background for a Jisc project looking to establish a national data registry to make finding relevant data across disciplines and repositories quicker and easier.