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Research Data Management Resources

Data management best practices, funder mandates, data sharing options, and local resources for research data management.

Data Policies

“The Administration is committed to ensuring that, to the greatest extent and with the fewest constraints possible…, the direct results of federally funded scientific research are made available to and useful for the public, industry, and the scientific community.” John Holdren, OSTP Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies (2013)
 
“Publicly funded research data are a public good, produced in the public interest, which should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible in a timely and responsible manner that does not harm intellectual property.” RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy (2012)

Resources

Funder Data Policies

NIH Data Sharing Policy (awards granted prior to January 25, 2023): Awards of $500K or more in direct costs are required to submit a plan for data sharing in the grant application. Effective since October, 2003.  

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Data Management Plan Policy: New/competing grants and research contracts must include a data management plan for managing, storing and disseminating the primary data, samples, physical collections and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of research funded by AHRQ, or state why data management is not possible, as a component of their grant application or research contract proposal. Effective May 26, 2020.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Data Sharing Policy: Researchers and their institutions funded by NIAAA are required to provide data sharing plan and submit grant-related human subjects data into the NIAAA Data Archive. Effective for all new and resubmitting grants January 25, 2019 onward.

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Data Sharing Policy: Researchers who are funded by NIMH are required to deposit all raw and analyzed data (including, but not limited to, clinical, genomic, imaging, and phenotypic data) from experiments involving human subjects into the NIMH Data Archive. Effective January 1, 2020.

HHMI Policy for the Sharing of Publication-related Materials, Data, and Software: If data related to the publication can not be included in the publication itself, access to the data should be made freely online via a disciplinary repository or other means. Effective since May, 2007. 

NSF Data Management Plan Requirement: Any proposal to the NSF must include a 2-page supplemental Data Management Plan detailing how the project will conform to NSF Policy on the Dissemination and Sharing of Research Results. Effective since January, 2011. 

Data Policy Finder

Don't know if the journal where you want to publish has a data policy? Look in the information for authors or Ask a Librarian

Publisher Data Policies

Publisher may have specific requirements regarding the availability and retention of data that supports conclusions they publish. For example: 

PLOS

PLOS recently revised their policy on the Sharing of Data, Materials, and Software to reflect the principle that "to best foster scientific progress, the underlying data from an article should be made freely available for researchers to use, wherever this is legal and ethical." Effective March 2014, PLOS requires that authors include a Data Availability Statement describing where and how others can access the data that underlies their published findings.

npg, Nature Publishing GroupNature Publishing Group requires that data underlying publishing findings "must be made freely available to readers from the date of publication, and must be provided to editors and peer-reviewers at submission, for the purposes of evaluating the manuscript." They recommend several disciplinary data repositories for certain types of data. Read their Policy on the Availability of data, materials, code and protocols.

Springer Nature has issued a set of data policies that they are encouraging all of their journals to adhere to. There are four types of policies which support different levels of data sharing and data deposition. Read more about their research data policies

UMass Chan Medical School Policies