RCUK policies and guidance on Data Management and Storage
Council
AHRC
BBSRC
Time frames
Data Management Plan in applications
Policy Documents
Significant electronic resources must be made available for at There is a section ‘Technical Summary’ in the AHRC - 'Deposit of
least 3 years after the end of the grant.
Case for Support.
resources or datasets'
For Archaeology: Deposits to the Archaeology Data Service Applicants who identify within the Technical
(ADS) should be deposited within 3 months of the end of the Summary that their proposal has digital
project.
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.
Terms and conditions of
research grants: deposit
of resources or datasets
and completion of a
Technical Plan: Research
Funding Guide)
BBSRC expects research data generated as a result of BBSRC A Data Management Plan is required, 1 side of
support to be made available with as few restrictions as A4. Data sharing plans may include details of:
possible in a timely and responsible manner to the scientific
community for subsequent research
Data areas and data types, Standards and
metadata, Relationship to other data,
Timescales for data sharing will be influenced by the nature of available in public repositories; Secondary use
the data but it is expected that timely release would generally of the data); Methods for data sharing;
be no later than the release through publication of the main Proprietary data; Timeframes - timescales for
findings and should be in-line with established best practice in public release of data; Format of the final
the field. Where best practice does not exist, release of data dataset.
within three years of its generation is suggested.
Applicants may claim justifiable costs
Data should be maintained for 10 years after project associated with data sharing activities, which
completion.
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:
http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/
web/FILES/Policies/datasharing-policy.pdf
RCUK policies and guidance on Data Management and Storage
Council
EPSRC
ESRC
Time frames
Data Management Plans in applications
Policy Documents
EPSRC-funded researchers should be entitled to a limited A Data Management Plan is not required as EPSRC’s
Policy
period of privileged access to the data they collect. The length part of the application.
Framework on Research
of this period will depend on the scientific discipline and the
Data
nature of the research.
EPSRC Funding Guide:
Appropriately structured metadata describing research data
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/f
held by researchers must be published on the internet
unding/guidance/funding
(normally within 12 months of the data being generated).
guide/Pages/fundingguid
Where access to the data is restricted the published metadata
e.aspx
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.
The data must be made available for re-use or archiving with All ESRC-funded research projects, collecting
the ESRC data service providers within 3 months of the end of or producing data, are required to develop
the grant.
and implement a Data Management Plan
(max. 3 pages) to ensure that data are well
To this effect, research data must be accompanied by high- managed during their life-cycle and are ready
quality metadata in order to provide secondary users with the to be offered for archiving and sharing when a
important additional information, for example, the origin, project ends.
circumstances, processing/analysis and/or the researcher’s
management of the data.
The grant holder should seek advice and
guidance from the ESRC UK Data Service
Grant holders must also formally offer any data created or (UKDS) at the outset of the project to clarify
repurposed during the lifetime of the award to the UK Data how issues of confidentiality and sharing are
Service (UKDS) within 3 months of the end of the award.
to be addressed.
ESRC’s
Data
Policy:
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ab
outesrc/information/datapolicy.aspx
ESRC Research Funding
Guide
RCUK policies and guidance on Data Management and Storage
Council
MRC
Time frames
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'.
NERC
STFC
Data Management Plans in applications
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.
NERC allows researchers an embargo period of a maximum of 2 Outline Data Management Plan (ODMP), 1
years from the end of data collection to work exclusively on page in the Case for Support. The ODMP will
their data sets and publish their findings.
identify data sets likely to be made available
to NERC Data Centres for archiving and reuse
NERC grant holders are required to offer to deposit with a at the end of the fellowship or grant.
NERC data centre copies of any data sets resulting from the
research supported. The data centres will take copies of those A full Data Management Plan (DMP) should be
data sets considered to be of long-term value, which will be mutually agreed between the Data Centre and
identified in discussion between the researcher and the data the Principal Investigator within three months
centre. Appropriate data formats and metadata requirements of the start date of a grant.
will be agreed with the data centres as part of this process.
Policy Documents
MRC Policy on data
sharing
Principles for access to,
and use of, MRC funded
research data
NERC
data
policy:
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/re
search/sites/data/policy.a
sp
NERC data management
plans, inc. guidance and
checklists:
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/re
search/sites/data/dmp.as
p
In general, STFC expects that published data should be made A Data Management Plan is mandatory on Data Management Plans:
publicly available within 6 months of publication unless most STFC schemes and should be a maximum http://www.stfc.ac.uk/19
justified otherwise.
of two sides of A4. If it is felt that a DMP is not 30.aspx
relevant to the proposal then applicants
Where possible, STFC expects the original data, from which should upload a document stating why to pass
other related data can in principle be derived, to be retained validation requirement.
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.