Lydia Jennings
The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance are increasingly referenced across the research and data ecosystem, yet their application remains uneven and inconsistently practiced throughout the data lifecycle. As data creation, curation, sharing, and reuse expand through open science initiatives, the need for coherent, implementable standards that uphold Indigenous rights and interests has become urgent. In response, an Indigenous-led, international effort has convened scholars, publishers, editors, and metadata experts to develop practical guidance for operationalizing Indigenous Data Sovereignty and the CARE Principles within scholarly publishing. This initiative—led by the Collaboratory for Indigenous Data Governance, ENRICH, and Te Kotahi Research Institute—has partnered with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Publications and Open Science Leadership teams and the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) to co-design publishing guidelines that support the ethical governance of Indigenous data. Together, collaborators examined gaps in current editorial and metadata practices, identified points of intervention across the research and publication workflow, and articulated responsibilities for publishers, editors, authors, and reviewers. Here, we introduce the newly developed CARE Publishing Guidelines, which offer a hierarchical framework of implementation strategies tailored to diverse publishing contexts. The guidelines provide clear, actionable steps for integrating Indigenous rights and interests into manuscript submission, review, curation, and dissemination processes. We also highlight endorsements from major publishers and outline next steps for adoption and evaluation. These guidelines aim to support Indigenous scholars and communities in navigating the publishing landscape while ensuring that Indigenous data are protected, governed, and shared with purpose, authority, and intention.