The impact of perceived FAIR principles on data reuse intentions among biomedical scientists

This study investigates the factors influencing data reuse behavior among biomedical scientists by integrating FAIR principles with Technology Readiness Acceptance Model. The proposed model was empirically tested using survey data from 517 researchers affiliated with medical schools and biomedical departments at universities in the Republic of Korea. The results show that perceived findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability all load significantly onto the higher-order construct of perceived FAIR principles. Perceived FAIR principles positively influence perceived contributors, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and data reuse intention, while negatively affecting perceived inhibitors. In turn, perceived contributors enhance both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, whereas perceived inhibitors reduce perceived ease of use but do not significantly affect perceived usefulness. Finally, perceived FAIR principles, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use were all found to have significant positive effects on biomedical scientists’ intentions to reuse other researchers’ data. This study suggests that perceived FAIR principles function as an upstream factor that influences researchers’ motivational beliefs and, ultimately, their intentions to reuse research data. These findings imply that improving the FAIRness of research data can foster more favorable perceptions and stronger intentions toward data reuse. Accordingly, institutions, libraries, and data repositories should enhance metadata quality, documentation, and repository usability while also providing training and data stewardship services to strengthen researchers’ data reuse practices.