Data are highly heterogeneous and broadly distributed, so the first step will be to browse for what is available in your discipline. (It also depends on what you need the data for—e.g., for teaching and learning, for reference values, or for comparison with some other data.) Here are a few techniques you can try for finding STEM research data:

• Visit re3data, the Registry of Research Data Repositories and Browse by subject to find your discipline. You can further narrow down results using the sidebar.
• Read recent papers in your field and look for instances where the authors have shared their data.
• Some types of data are straightforwardly identified according to their producer, such as U.S. Census data or particle-physics data produced by CERN using the Large Hadron Collider.
• Look for packages/libraries of data that may be bundled for your field; examples in the R community are the medicaldata package and Bioconductor's ExperimentData packages.

More detailed information about searching for datasets resides in the Library's Finding Data subject guide. Geographic data fit with some of the techniques mentioned above, but our Geographic Information System (GIS) Resources subject guide is highly recommended.

Need help?

If you need help finding data for your purpose, reach out for a consultation via our Ask Us page! Consultations for finding data are part of the Library's research data services.