cover the staff resources required to put together a data set for collaborators. We do not police overlaps between requests, but since July 2011 all approved projects are detailed on the website (address as above), so potential collaborators can see what is already being done with the resource. We also do not police the scientific quality of projects, which is the responsibility of the investigators, but we do ensure that the study is correctly described in articles/other reports going for publication. Once a project has been agreed, the researchers are assigned a data buddy to support collaboration. The data buddy will provide the data set and advice on analysis of the data set. Any newly derived variables (including new assays on stored bloods) by the collaborator will be put into the main ALSPAC database and made available to other researchers once the collaborator has completed their project. As part of the collaborative agreement, we expect collaborators to produce appropriately detailed information about such new variables.
