Zenodo offers an inclusive, discipline-agnostic platform to preserve and disseminate research data, making it a robust option when no field-specific repository exists; hosted by CERN's Data Centre, it ensures long-term preservation under rigorous technical stewardship, aligning perfectly with FAIR data principles and funder mandates like those of the European Commission, which even established a dedicated community within Zenodo for Horizon Europe and other EU-funded projects, allowing researchers to contribute transparently to the EU Open Research Repository while meeting open science requirements; one of Zenodo’s strongest assets is the automatic generation of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), which transform datasets into stable, citable research objects, enhancing academic visibility and citation metrics, and it further supports versioning, allowing scholars to update their datasets without breaking the citation chain, a feature critical for iterative or evolving data projects; it also integrates seamlessly with GitHub, turning code repositories into scholarly outputs with persistent identifiers, bridging the gap between traditional research and software contributions; Ghent University recommends Zenodo especially when no domain-specific solution is available, ensuring that all datasets, regardless of discipline, receive professional archiving, access control (open, embargoed or restricted), and licencing options to safeguard ethical and legal standards; finally, a practical entry point is provided through the Zenodo sandbox, an environment to experiment with uploads before committing to the public record, while detailed help guides and the Ghent University Research Data Community offer support and discoverability examples for newcomers.
