# DANS Data Stations

DANS, the Dutch national centre for research data of KNAW and NWO, runs four Data Stations on Dataverse: Archaeology (176,448 datasets, 102,024 of them finds from Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands), Social Sciences and Humanities (8,162), Life Sciences (1,110) and Physical and Technical Sciences (898). Metadata are always public; files are open under a Creative Commons licence or restricted under the DANS Licence. DataCite counts 189,177 DOIs with the DANS prefix 10.17026 (16 October 2026).

- Publisher: DANS (Data Archiving and Networked Services)
- Area: Netherlands · Finest detail: dataset
- Period: per dataset verschillend (het Kiezersonderzoek begint in 1971) · Refreshed: daily
- Access: Open · Licence: per dataset; Creative Commons (open) of DANS-licentie (afgeschermd, toegang op verzoek); metadata openbaar
- Join keys: DOI (10.17026/…), Data Station
- Status: grijs
- URL: https://dans.knaw.nl/en/data-stations/

## What can you do with it?
- **Fifty years of election studies.** The Dutch Parliamentary Election Study has 25 datasets, from 1971 to 2023. Older waves are open (CC BY 4.0), waves from 2017 onwards require an access request (DANS Licence).
- **Finds by amateurs.** Over 100,000 datasets in the Archaeology Data Station are finds from Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands (titles starting with PAN). Find out what was found near you.
- **Does that study really exist?.** A fact checker can use the DOI to check who made a dataset, when and under which conditions. Search DataCite for prefix 10.17026 and a word from the title.

## How to process it
1. **Search via DataCite.** DataCite holds the metadata of every DANS DOI, with title, year and licence, and no robots.txt ban. Filter with prefix=10.17026 and query=. For example the 25 election study datasets.
   `https://api.datacite.org/dois?prefix=10.17026&query=titles.title:%22Nationaal%20Kiezersonderzoek%22&page%5Bsize%5D=25`
2. **The Dataverse API.** Each Data Station runs Dataverse and offers the documented Search API (/api/search?q=…&type=dataset) and per dataset /api/datasets/:persistentId/. robots.txt bans crawlers; DANS does not say whether single calls fall under that. The Data Station Policy (J.1) does list API access and metadata harvesting for other portals as a service.
   `https://guides.dataverse.org/en/latest/api/search.html`
3. **Download files.** Open files (Creative Commons) can be downloaded without an account. For restricted files you log in with SURFconext or ORCID and request access; the depositor decides.
   `https://ssh.datastations.nl/`

## Interesting combinations
- Who voted for what, and why? → [kiesraad-verkiezingen](https://www.opendataindex.nl/en/bron/kiesraad-verkiezingen.md) via verkiezingsjaar en partij. The Electoral Council gives the result, the election study the voters' motives. Put an election result next to the survey of the same year.
- What was found around this monument? → [rijksmonumenten](https://www.opendataindex.nl/en/bron/rijksmonumenten.md) via plaats en coördinaten. Archaeological reports and finds in the Archaeology Data Station can have a place or coordinates. Combine them with the 1,461 archaeological national monuments.

## Similar sources
- [4tu-researchdata](https://www.opendataindex.nl/en/bron/4tu-researchdata.md): The repository of the 4TU federation, mostly engineering, water and climate; DANS has more social sciences and archaeology.
- [onderzoeksoutput](https://www.opendataindex.nl/en/bron/onderzoeksoutput.md): Publications by Dutch researchers (OpenAlex), not the underlying data.
- [DataverseNL](https://dans.knaw.nl/en/data-services/dataversenl/): Shared Dataverse of participating institutions, also run by DANS; it holds datasets that are not in the Data Stations.

## What to watch out for
- **No automated harvesting.** The Data Stations' robots.txt bans all crawlers except Google and Bing. We therefore do not harvest them and run no status check; the chart and the list on this page come from DataCite.
- **Open metadata, not always open files.** According to the Data Station Policy, published metadata are always public. Files may be restricted (DANS Licence, access on request) or under embargo.
- **Figures differ.** dans.knaw.nl mentions 377,417 datasets, the four Data Stations together returned 186,618 and DataCite counts 189,177 DOIs with 10.17026 (16 Oct 2026). By the landing pages in DataCite: Archaeology 177,962, Social Sciences and Humanities 9,000, Life Sciences 1,135, Physical and Technical Sciences 907 and 173 elsewhere. Say which count you use.
- **Archaeology dominates.** Over 94 percent of the datasets in the Data Stations are archaeology, more than half of them single finds from PAN. Counts of "all research data" mostly say something about archaeology.

## API (REST (JSON:API), via DataCite)

- Base: https://api.datacite.org
- Access: No key for metadata. With an e-mail address in the User-Agent (or mailto=) DataCite allows 1,000 instead of 500 requests per 5 minutes. Restricted files in the Data Stations require login (SURFconext/ORCID) and permission. (tested)
- Formats: json, JSON:API, DataCite XML (attribuut xml, base64)
- Size: 189179 DOIs with prefix 10.17026 in DataCite (16 Oct 2026), 177,964 of them with a landing page on archaeology.datastations.nl (tested)
- Filtering: Separate parameters (prefix, resource-type-id, published) plus an Elasticsearch-syntax query in query=; that is also how you filter per Data Station (publisher or url).; veld:waarde, "zin", AND, OR, NOT, *

### Endpoints
- `GET /dois?prefix=10.17026`: All DANS DOIs, with filters, search, sorting and paging. Total in meta.total.
- `GET /dois/{doi}`: One DOI with all metadata: creators, description, subjects, licence, Data Station (publisher), landing page.
- `GET /prefixes/10.17026`: Which DataCite member owns the prefix (client dans.archive, provider dans).

### Parameters
- `prefix`: DOI prefix; 10.17026 is DANS. (tested)
- `client-id`: Alternative to prefix: dans.archive. (tested)
- `query`: Elasticsearch syntax on fields. Per Data Station: publisher:"DANS Data Station Social Sciences and Humanities" (8,871) or url:*archaeology.datastations.nl* (177,964). Title: titles.title:"Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek" (25). Licence: rightsList.rightsIdentifier:cc-by-4.0 (57,396). (tested)
- `resource-type-id`: Type: dataset (189,074 of 189,179), software, text … (tested)
- `published`: Publication year, e.g. 2025 (14,943 DOIs) or a range 2020-2025. (tested)
- `fields[dois]`: Return only these attributes (doi,titles,publicationYear,rightsList,url,publisher). (tested)
- `page[size]`: 0 to 1,000 per page; 0 = count only. (tested)
- `page[cursor]`: Start with 1 and follow links.next; needed beyond 10,000 records (DANS has 189,000). (tested)
- `sort`: created, updated, published, name, relevance; - for descending. (from the description)

### Fields in the DataCite response (selection) (10)
`attributes.doi` tekst, `attributes.titles[].title` tekst, `attributes.publisher` tekst, `attributes.url` url, `attributes.publicationYear` getal, `attributes.rightsList[]` lijst, `attributes.subjects[]` lijst, `attributes.creators[]` lijst, `attributes.geoLocations[]` lijst, `meta.total` getal

### Limits and pitfalls
- DataCite: 500 requests per 5 minutes per IP address, 1,000 with an e-mail address in the User-Agent or mailto=; above that HTTP 429. (from the description)
- At most 1,000 records per page; page numbers up to 10,000 records, after that silently the same last page. For all of DANS (189,000) use the cursor. (tested)
- Dataverse Search API: per_page at most 1,000, start = offset (according to the Dataverse documentation). (platform)
- robots.txt of *.datastations.nl: User-agent * Disallow: / (only Googlebot and Bingbot on dataset pages), Crawl-delay 10. We therefore do not call the Dataverse APIs; the example goes through DataCite. (tested)
- DANS's Data Station Policy (J.1) does list API access and metadata harvesting as a service. DANS does not say whether single API calls fall under the robots ban. (experience)
- Get the Data Station from attributes.publisher or the host of attributes.url. Counting by publisher: Social Sciences and Humanities 8,871; by url: archaeology 177,964, life sciences 1,135. (tested)
- Over 100,000 archaeology DOIs are single finds from Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands (titles starting with PAN); count them separately. (experience)

### Example
```
https://api.datacite.org/dois?prefix=10.17026&query=titles.title:%22Nationaal%20Kiezersonderzoek%22&page%5Bsize%5D=3&fields%5Bdois%5D=doi,titles,publicationYear,rightsList,url,publisher
```

## How to fetch it

### curl
```bash
curl -g "https://api.datacite.org/dois?prefix=10.17026&query=titles.title:%22Nationaal%20Kiezersonderzoek%22&page[size]=25&fields[dois]=doi,titles,publicationYear,rightsList"
```

### python
```python
import requests

# Via DataCite (geen robots.txt-verbod); de Data Stations zelf verbieden crawlers.
r = requests.get("https://api.datacite.org/dois", params={
    "prefix": "10.17026", "query": 'titles.title:"Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek"',
    "page[size]": 25, "fields[dois]": "doi,titles,publicationYear,rightsList"},
    headers={"User-Agent": "mijnproject/1.0 (mailto:jij@voorbeeld.nl)"})
for x in r.json()["data"]:
    a = x["attributes"]
    print(a["publicationYear"], a["titles"][0]["title"][:60], [l.get("rights") for l in a["rightsList"]])
```


## What is in it: 189,437 datasets

Everything DANS has registered with DataCite, by Data Station, subject and year of publication. From DataCite, not from the Data Stations themselves; every night what changed in DataCite is added. Every dataset has its own page with licence, DOI and the DataCite call.

- Kinds: dataset 189,332, collectie 96, tekst 8, software 1
- Last changed: 2026-10-30 (435 in the past 30 days)
- With an API call on the dataset page: 189,437
- Search: https://www.opendataindex.nl/api/catalogus/datacite-dans?q=… or the MCP function zoek_datasets with herkomst=datacite-dans
- Every row has its own page: https://www.opendataindex.nl/en/dataset/datacite-dans/<key>

### Folders
- DANS Data Station Archaeology (178,201): Arts and Humanities (176663), No subject (1521), Other (9), Agricultural Sciences (7), Earth and Environmental Sciences (1)
- DANS Data Station Social Sciences and Humanities (9,007): Arts and Humanities (4623), Social Sciences (2609), No subject (955), Business and Management (269), Law (200), Medicine, Health and Life Sciences (189), Other (58), Earth and Environmental Sciences (53) …
- DANS Data Station Life Sciences (1,138): No subject (733), Medicine, Health and Life Sciences (298), Earth and Environmental Sciences (65), Agricultural Sciences (28), Arts and Humanities (8), Engineering (3), Chemistry (2), Other (1)
- DANS Data Station Physical and Technical Sciences (918): No subject (393), Arts and Humanities (290), Earth and Environmental Sciences (140), Agricultural Sciences (40), Computer and Information Science (27), Engineering (10), Other (8), Physics (4) …
- Elsewhere (landing page outside the Data Stations) (173): No subject (173)

## Examples with real figures (1)

For each example the finding, the reference date and the call that fetches exactly these figures.

- **DANS DOIs per publication year, counted in DataCite (prefix 10.17026): 14,943 DOIs in 2025, 4 times as much as in 2008** (2025). Table DOI-voorvoegsel 10.17026. [Example](https://www.opendataindex.nl/en/voorbeeld/dans-dois-per-jaar)
  - `https://api.datacite.org/dois?prefix=10.17026&published=2025&page%5Bsize%5D=1&fields%5Bdois%5D=doi`