Wellcome Trust Director Mark Walport and Hewlett Foundation President Paul Brest co-authored an article published in The Lancet about the importance of making research data widely available to the scientific community in order to accelerate advances in public health. To further this goal, Walport and Brest announced the joint commitment of a group of major international funders of public health to promote greater access to and use of the research data that they fund. You can read the full text of The Lancet article here:
http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)62234-9/fulltext