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What is Negotiator?

The need for a service to streamline access to samples and data emerged in 2016 within Europe’s biobanking and biomolecular resource research infrastructure. In response, BBMRI-ERIC introduced the Negotiator platform in 2018.

Negotiator is a versatile software solution designed to enable secure, efficient negotiations for accessing sensitive data. Tailored for diverse research settings, it allows users to customize workflows and settings to match specific requirements. As a fully open-source platform, Negotiator eliminates concerns about vendor lock-in and fosters community collaboration and ongoing enhancements. Its robust architecture is trusted by leading research infrastructures like BBMRI-ERIC and is supported by prominent EU-funded projects such as canSERV and EUCAIM, affirming its effectiveness and reliability in facilitating data access negotiations across various fields.

Just want to see how it looks like? Try heading to the BBMRI-ERIC Negotiator

Use cases

• Streamlining access procedures

Negotiator is purpose-built as a platform for negotiating access conditions between multiple parties, providing a secure and structured environment for managing sensitive data access. Its value increases significantly as more organizations, departments, or research entities join, enabling seamless collaboration across diverse stakeholders. By offering a centralized, customizable interface, Negotiator simplifies the often complex processes involved in data access agreements, helping to align varying requirements and policies across institutions.

This adaptability makes Negotiator particularly valuable for large research infrastructures and networks where data access needs can vary widely. Users can easily tailor workflows and access conditions to suit the unique mandates of each organization, promoting transparency, compliance, and efficiency. As an open-source solution, it also ensures flexibility and fosters continuous improvement through community input, mitigating concerns about vendor lock-in. Widely adopted by infrastructures like BBMRI-ERIC and supported by major EU-funded projects such as canSERV and EUCAIM, Negotiator is a proven solution for facilitating data sharing and collaboration across research domains.

• Multi-Institutional Clinical Research

Negotiator is particularly valuable in multi-institutional clinical research, where researchers and healthcare providers from diverse organizations must access sensitive patient data while adhering to strict regulatory requirements. In these collaborative studies, data access negotiations are often complex due to differing privacy laws, ethical guidelines, and institutional policies. Negotiator streamlines this process by allowing each organization to establish tailored access conditions, ensuring compliance with regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA. With a centralized platform, researchers can securely manage and track access permissions while maintaining transparency and accountability. This is crucial in clinical research, where preserving data privacy is paramount. By enabling clear audit trails and customizable access agreements, Negotiator facilitates seamless and compliant data sharing across institutions, promoting collaborative research without compromising data security or integrity.

Example

At BBMRI-ERIC, Negotiator is deployed as a centralized platform to manage and streamline access requests across a network of biobanks and research institutions. Researchers use Negotiator to submit requests for biosamples and data, while participating biobanks can review, negotiate, and approve access conditions tailored to each inquiry. Through its integration with other BBMRI-ERIC services—such as the Directory, which catalogs available samples, and the Locator, which identifies specific biobanks that hold requested resources—Negotiator offers a seamless experience from resource discovery to request fulfillment. This interaction between services allows BBMRI-ERIC to efficiently handle complex, multi-party negotiations, ensuring regulatory compliance and transparency. By centralizing and coordinating these processes, Negotiator supports BBMRI-ERIC’s mission to facilitate cross-border biomedical research and improve accessibility to valuable biological resources across Europe. The access conditions are specified in the BBMRI-ERIC Access Policy.