Research and confidentiality agreement

Accepted projects are subject to the conclusion of a research and confidentiality agreement with the National Bank of Belgium and, if applicable, external data providers. This agreement must contain in particular the following provisions.

Confidentiality

Data downloads are prohibited. There shall be no disclosure to the researcher of information that allows the direct or indirect identification of individual data. The data shall be treated with the utmost confidentiality by the researcher. The latter shall not make copies of the data and shall not transmit the data to any third party. Publications shall not allow for the identification of individual data.

Breach of the research and confidentiality agreement may give rise to legal action as well as the termination of all projects in which the researcher is involved.

Publication

Publication of the research results is subject to approval and review by the MiRDH selection committee or the NBB’s Working Papers committee, which will check inter alia that the published results comply with confidentiality rules and that non-aggregated confidential data are not disclosed.

The published paper should include the following disclaimer and data source mention. If so requested by the editorial board of the academic journal, the MiRDH data access clause set out below can be included as well.

Disclaimer: “The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bank of Belgium or of any other institution to which the authors are affiliated. Any errors are the author’s own.”

Data source: “This paper uses confidential microeconomic data obtained through the Microeconomic Research Data Hub of the National Bank of Belgium.”

Data access clause: “This paper uses confidential microeconomic data obtained through the Microeconomic Research Data Hub of the National Bank of Belgium. The data are subject to confidentiality restrictions, but the National Bank of Belgium has developed a policy that allows external researchers to work with these proprietary datasets. Access to the Microeconomic Research Data Hub is granted based on the submission of a research project. This paper is the result of such a project.”

Publication of information about projects and papers on the MiRDH website

Information about each project will be posted on the MiRDH website, including the title of the project, the authors’ names, their research institution and the datasets used.

Published papers will also be posted on the MiRDH website, with an indication of the title, the authors’ names, their research institution, publication reference and the datasets used.

Completion of a project, data retention and replication package

After publication or upon completion of a project, if the editorial board of the academic journal asks to keep a copy of the data used, the authors are requested to provide the MiRDH team with a replication package, mentioning the relevant datasets and the codes used to produce the results set out in the publication. All other files will be deleted. It is the responsibility of the researcher to ensure that all files needed for proper replication of the results are archived with the project. Archives are kept for five years from completion of the project.