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  • NATURE INDEX

From exploitation to empowerment: how researchers can protect Indigenous peoples’ rights to own and control their data

By changing how contracts are done, institutions can move away from exploitative research practices.
By
  1. Cassandra Sedran-Price

    1. Cassandra Sedran-Price is an executive in the Maiam nayri Wingara Indigenous Data Sovereignty Collective and an adjunct senior researcher at the University of Tasmania, in Hobart.

Historically, the people and institutions that carry out research related to Indigenous peoples have assumed that they own those data — they can share them, build on them, withhold them or obscure them, with no real requirement to give a tangible benefit to these communities in return. As a result, the policies and research that these data inform often do not meet the needs and priorities of Indigenous peoples.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03640-7

This article is part of Nature Index 2024 Australia, an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content. For more information about Nature Index, see the homepage.

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