On February 26, 2003, the National Institutes of Health released its final statement on sharing research data. It reaffirms NIH's support of the concept of data sharing and requires all investigator-initiated applications with direct costs greater than $500,000 in any single year will be expected to address data sharing in their application. Specific Program Announcements, Requests for Applications and Requests for Proposals may have special instructions regarding this requirement. Reviewers will not factor the proposed data-sharing plan into the determination of scientific merit or priority score. Program staff will be responsible for overseeing the data sharing policy and for assessing the appropriateness and adequacy of the proposed data-sharing plan. Additional information about this data sharing policy may be found at: http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-03-032.html.