When publishing with Data obtained from GISAID, authors should acknowledge data contributors and cite GISAID in each of the following ways:

When making the first reference to your use of data obtained through GISAID, cite GISAID as the source of these data used in your analysis by adding footnote to appear in your References section to one of the three sources for citation below:

Khare, S., et al (2021) GISAID’s Role in Pandemic Response. China CDC Weekly, 3(49): 1049-1051. doi: 10.46234/ccdcw2021.255 PMCID: 8668406

Elbe, S. and Buckland-Merrett, G. (2017) Data, disease and diplomacy: GISAID’s innovative contribution to global health. Global Challenges, 1:33-46. doi: 10.1002/gch2.1018 PMCID: 31565258

Shu, Y. and McCauley, J. (2017) GISAID: from vision to reality. EuroSurveillance, 22(13) doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2017.22.13.30494 PMCID: PMC5388101

The following text should appear as the first sentence of your Acknowledgments section in recognition of data contributors:  

Author(s) should use this section to communicate the data availability through the associated EPI_SET Identifier for all genome sequences and metadata used in the analysis.

Learn more about the permanent and unique identifiers from GISAID’s Guide to EPI_SET ID.

EPI_SET IDs may be communicated by either stating the EPI_SET ID, or by setting a deep-link to a digital object identifier (DOI) provided by GISAID.

“The findings of this study are based on metadata associated with 8,949,097 sequences
available on GISAID up to March 18, 2022, and accessible at doi.org/10.55876/gis8.220330me."

Supplemental Table

Use of a supplemental table from GISAID ensures that all genome sequences and metadata used in the analysis are locatable for compliant Data Acknowledgment purposes and accessible to peers for replication on GISAID’s platform.
 
The Supplemental Table (example) is provided alongside a newly generated EPI_SET ID and corresponding DOI.
 
Use of the Supplemental Table must be in its original form without alteration, redaction, or other comment.

In 2003, an article titled "It’s a scoop" asks whether the pressure on scientists to “be the first to publish ‘hot’ results” was “distorting scientific progress” and negatively impacting the quality of scientific work. 

Researchers were reluctant to share data before publishing their own analyses for fear of being “scooped,” and there was little incentive for researchers and countries to share genomic data, which hindered the timely development of vaccines and therapeutics necessary to respond to epidemic.

To overcome this reluctance the GISAID data sharing mechanism was devised. The goal was to encourage and incentivize rapid sharing of data, particularly data related to high-impact pathogens, with a primary focus on public health.  Much has been written about GISAID’s mission and the positive effect GISAID has had on the timely exchange of pathogen information, e.g. Elbe et al (2017); Shu et al (2017); Khare et al (2021).

When requesting GISAID access credentials, users agree that using data obtained from GISAID in an analysis requires the acknowledgement of all data contributors, i.e. the Authors and their Originating laboratories responsible for obtaining the specimens, and their Submitting laboratories responsible for generating and uploading the genetic sequence and associated metadata. 

Making such an analysis accessible to the public for sale or for free, or whether publishing same in form of a preprint or peer-reviewed scientific journal requires compliance with the requirement to acknowledge.

GISAID Accession Numbers are used as unique and permanent identifiers for each data record beginning with the letters EPI and followed by sequence of numbers. GISAID Accession Numbers are accepted without limitation by peer-reviewed journals and required at the time of submission of manuscripts for publication.