The Nansen Legacy collects a wide range of data, including biological information on species in the water masses, as well as physical, chemical and dynamical features of the ocean, the atmosphere and the cryosphere. Additionally, the project gathers and makes available existing data collected from monitoring programs and research projects focused on the Barents Sea ecosystem over the past decades. Data rescue efforts on oceanographic and atmospheric data from the Barents Sea are also undertaken. This requires a dedicated data management team to ensure the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability of all data.

The Nansen Legacy has therefore a dedicated Research Activity work package to ensure long term preservation of all relevant data from the project and data rescue program, with unified, open data access through services that provide for simplified data exchange and responsible data reuse, including proper attribution. The Nansen Legacy data management is based on existing institutional systems as well as national and international research infrastructures (NMDC, NorDataNet and SIOS) under development.