"It was agreed at February's Editorial Policy meeting that BioMed Central journals would be offered the option of adding a new section to their research articles, 'Availability of supporting data'. An increasing number of journals, such as BMC Research Notes, are keen to include links in articles, in a consistent place, to the data set(s) supporting the results reported in articles. When the new is feature available editors can begin encouraging - or requiring - supporting data to be publicly available as a condition of publication. We understand it is not always possible or appropriate to share or publish raw data so the new section will be optional. Please get in touch to find out more. And since the meeting the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) have included BioMed Central as an endorser of the ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts." - Steve Koch