Find guidance on funding and agency updates during the federal government transition (updated 4/23/2025)

Home Research Services
Research Services

Finding and Preserving Research Data During the 2025 Transition

  • There have been changes and interruptions in access to several federal data sources previously available for public use and research.

  • Several government websites and pages have been taken down, rendering some critical research data inaccessible.

  • This site shows you how to find and preserve research data during the 2025 transition. The following flowchart shows an overview:

    finding and preserving research data flowchart with 5 questions described below

  • 1A. What Data Type is it? – Determine your data type: webpages, files/publications, datasets/databases, or code.

  • 1B. Is the Data Type Restricted? – This flow only applies to publicly available federal research data; if the data is restricted, contact Cornell Data Services for guidance.

  • 2. Is the Data Already Saved? – Investigate resources listed in the University of Minnesota’s Guide to Finding Government Info to determine if the data has already been saved.

  • 3. Do You Want Others to Save the Data? – If you want others to save the data, send a request to a list of data repositories to save the webpages, datasets, and code.

  • 4. Do You Want to Save the Data Yourself? – If you want to save the data yourself, contact Cornell Data Services for guidance and use MIT’s Checklist for Federal Data Backups as a walk-through reference.

  • If you have encountered changes to access to federal data for research, notify: researchimpact@cornell.edu.

  • If you have any questions or need assistance locating or saving federal datasets and reports for research, contact Cornell Data Services at: data-help@cornell.edu.

Identify the type of data you're working with:

  • Datafiles or publications (PDF, spreadsheet, image, etc.)

  • Datasets or databases (one that may require selection to subset, or API to access)

  • Websites (static vs interactive)

  • Code.

This webpage applies to publicly available federal research data.

Restricted datasets carrying Terms of Use (TOUs) or End User Licensing Agreements (EULAs) are out of scope.

Note: If the data is restricted, contact Cornell Data Services for guidance.

For data that is no longer online:

1.     Check University of Minnesota’s Guide to Finding Government Information during the 2025 Administration Transition.

This guide contains:

  • Links to groups performing data and website rescue.

  • Resources to identify and track changes that impact access to federal government information.

2.    Some helpful places to start looking for data are below:

Note: A more complete list of places to check for archived data is available at UMN’s Guide to Finding Government Information.

If you want others to save the data, submit a request to the following institutions:

For datasets, submit requests to save data in:

For webpages:

For code:

You can make a copy of the data, provided the data are not complex, very large, or restricted.

To make a copy of the data:

1.     Consult MIT’s Checklist for USA Federal Data Backups for detailed guidance.

2.    Archive your data.

  • a.    Contact Cornell Data Services for guidance. Cornell Data Services will also let you know whether the data can be shared with other researchers and/or data repositories.

  • b.    To ensure the data is reusable and accessible, include metadata and documentation.

Note: For questions about specific data resources, contact the Roper Center at: data-services@ropercenter.org.