Abstract Recent events of global impact have led the scientific community to re-evaluate and re-affirm the role of science in crisis situations. In particular, the Covid-19 health emergency required the abrupt (re-)allocation of scientific resources to address a pandemic, which demonstrated the vulnerability of sciences as well as the essential role of data science in responding to the health crisis. In a digital world, data collection, data processing, and data reuse is critical to scientific investigation and the development of evidence-based science and its use for critical decision-making in society’s response. This paper reports a workshop undertaken by the CODATA International Data Policy Committee (IDPC), together with leading international partners, on the role of data policy in times of crisis. A leading group of scientists and data experts representing a wide audience of various scientific disciplines and expertise from inter-governmental organisations led a critical investigation of the role of data policy in crisis situations. This paper presents preliminary results as to how data policy specifically designed to address the need for science in crisis situations can contribute to building a more robust scientific enterprise that is appropriately prepared for and capable of acting with confidence in the urgencies of crises. The workshop identified a need for establishing principles for data policy in time of crisis as developing concrete recommendations from the international scientific community and leading governmental and inter-governmental organisations.