SCC Nexus Provenance Standard

Objective

Every important public research object should be traceable backwards from the published claim or figure to the source records and processing steps that produced it.

Minimum provenance fields

Where applicable, each source or derived research object should record:

stable internal record ID;
source title and publisher/creator;
canonical source URL or persistent identifier (DOI, PMID, accession, Companies House number, dataset ID, etc.);
source type;
publication/observation date;
retrieval timestamp in UTC;
licence or reuse status where known;
raw-source checksum when a local artefact is retained;
extraction method and software version;
transformation or analysis version;
reviewer/validation status;
parent record IDs for derived objects;
output checksum where practical.

Hashing

SHA-256 is the default integrity hash for retained raw and generated artefacts unless a stronger project-specific requirement applies. A checksum establishes byte-level integrity, not truth or scientific validity.

Immutability and corrections

Raw evidence should not be silently overwritten. If a source changes, retain or identify the prior version where licensing and storage permit. Corrections to derived outputs should receive a new version and a dated changelog entry.

Machine-readable lineage

Derived public datasets should include parent identifiers or a manifest sufficient to reconstruct lineage. Human-readable reports should link to their methodology, source register and versioned evidence package where available.

AI provenance

If an AI system materially assists extraction, classification, summarisation or drafting, record the task class, model/tool identity where available, date, relevant configuration or prompt version, and the subsequent human or deterministic validation step. AI assistance must not be represented as independent corroboration.

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