  Data from high-energy physics (HEP) experiments are collected with
significant financial and human effort and are mostly unique. An
inter-experimental study group on HEP data preservation and long-term analysis
was convened as a panel of the International Committee for Future Accelerators
(ICFA). The group was formed by large collider-based experiments and
investigated the technical and organisational aspects of HEP data preservation.
An intermediate report was released in November 2009 addressing the general
issues of data preservation in HEP. This paper includes and extends the
intermediate report. It provides an analysis of the research case for data
preservation and a detailed description of the various projects at experiment,
laboratory and international levels. In addition, the paper provides a concrete
proposal for an international organisation in charge of the data management and
policies in high-energy physics.
