RCUK Policies and Guidance on Data Management and Storage
RCUK policies and guidance on Data Management and Storage
Council / Time frames / Data Management Plan in applications / Policy DocumentsAHRC / Significant electronic resources must be made available for at least 3 years after the end of the grant.
For Archaeology: Deposits to the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) should be deposited within 3 months of the end of the project. / There is a section ‘Technical Summary’ in the Case for Support.
Applicants who identify within the Technical Summary that their proposal has digital outputs or digital technologies which are essential to their planned research outcomes will be expected to complete a Technical Plan. See Research Funding guide for further details. / AHRC - 'Deposit of resources or datasets'
Terms and conditions of research grants: deposit of resources or datasets and completion of a Technical Plan: Research Funding Guide)
BBSRC / BBSRC expects research data generated as a result of BBSRC support to be made available with as few restrictions as possible in a timely and responsible manner to the scientific community for subsequent research
Timescales for data sharing will be influenced by the nature of the data but it is expected that timely release would generally be no later than the release through publication of the main findings and should be in-line with established best practice in the field. Where best practice does not exist, release of data within three years of its generation is suggested.
Data should be maintained for 10 years after project completion. / A Data Management Plan is required, 1 side of A4. Data sharing plans may include details of:
Data areas and data types, Standards and metadata, Relationship to other data, available in public repositories;Secondary use of the data);Methods for data sharing; Proprietary data; Timeframes - timescales for public release of data;Format of the final dataset.
Applicants may claim justifiable costs associated with data sharing activities, which should be captured in the application pro forma and in the Justification of Resources statement. / The data sharing policy, and detailed guidance notes, can be viewed at:
Council / Time frames / Data Management Plans in applications / Policy Documents
EPSRC / EPSRC-funded researchers should be entitled to a limited period of privileged access to the data they collect. The length of this period will depend on the scientific discipline and the nature of the research.
Appropriately structured metadata describing research data held by researchers must be published on the internet (normally within 12 months of the data being generated).
Where access to the data is restricted the published metadata should also give the reason and summarise the conditions which must be satisfied for access to be granted.
EPSRC-funded research data must be securely preserved for a minimum of 10-years from the date that any researcher ‘privileged access’ period expires or, if others have accessed the data, from last date on which access to the data was requested by a third party. / A Data Management Plan is not required as part of the application. / EPSRC’s Policy Framework on Research Data
EPSRC Funding Guide:
ESRC / The data must be made available for re-use or archiving with the ESRC data service providers within 3 months of the end of the grant.
To this effect, research data must be accompanied by high-quality metadata in order to provide secondary users with the important additional information, for example, the origin, circumstances, processing/analysis and/or the researcher’s management of the data.
Grant holdersmust also formally offer any data created or repurposed during the lifetime of the award to the UK Data Service (UKDS) within 3 months of the end of the award. / All ESRC-funded research projects, collecting or producing data, are required to develop and implement a Data Management Plan (max. 3 pages) to ensure that data are well managed during their life-cycle and are ready to be offered for archiving and sharing when a project ends.
The grant holder should seek advice and guidance from the ESRC UK Data Service (UKDS) at the outset of the project to clarify how issues of confidentiality and sharing are to be addressed. / ESRC’s Data Policy:
ESRC Research Funding Guide
Council / Time frames / Data Management Plans in applications / Policy Documents
MRC / Data must be retained for a period of 10 years after the completion of a research project.
Data arising from MRC-funded research must be made available to the scientific community with as few restrictions as possible 'in a timely and responsible manner'. / All applicants submitting funding proposals to the MRC are required to include a Data Management Plan as an annex to their case for support.
The data management plan template can be used to develop a DMP to accompany a research proposal. / MRC Policy on data sharing
Principles for access to, and use of, MRC funded research data
NERC / NERC allows researchers an embargo period of a maximum of 2 years from the end of data collection to work exclusively on their data sets and publish their findings.
NERC grant holders are required to offer to deposit with a NERC data centre copies of any data sets resulting from the research supported. The data centres will take copies of those data sets considered to be of long-term value, which will be identified in discussion between the researcher and the data centre. Appropriate data formats and metadata requirements will be agreed with the data centres as part of this process. / Outline Data Management Plan (ODMP), 1 page inthe Case for Support.The ODMP will identify data sets likely to be made available to NERC Data Centres for archiving and reuse at the end of the fellowship or grant.
A full Data Management Plan (DMP) should be mutually agreed between the Data Centre and the Principal Investigator within three months of the start date of a grant. / NERC data policy:
NERC data management plans, inc. guidance and checklists:
STFC / In general, STFC expects that published data should be made publicly available within 6 months of publication unless justified otherwise.
Where possible, STFC expects the original data, from which other related data can in principle be derived, to be retained for a minimum of 10 years from the end of the project. For data that by their nature cannot be re-measured, efforts should be made to retain them indefinitely. / A Data Management Plan is mandatory on most STFC schemes and should be a maximum of two sides of A4. If it is felt that a DMP is not relevant to the proposal then applicants should upload a document stating why to pass validation requirement. / Data Management Plans: