RCUK Data Policies

Research Councils UK have devised Common Principles on Data Policy. This establishes their position on the management of research data produced by projects they fund, as well as taking steps to making data publically available.

Each Council has slightly different requirements in relation to proposals for funding and the research data arising from the projects they fund. The Digital Curation Centre have pulled together a useful summary table together with information on funders’ data policies. See their Overview of funders’ data policies web page for further details.

UK HEI RDM survey and the DCC

This post makes an interesting addition to earlier posts regarding our UK HEI Research Data Management survey and the benefits of being part of the JISCMRD programme.

We looked at the survey results and DCC engagement institutions to see whether there was any evidence to suggest that institutions with RDM services in place received DCC support.

An initial mapping of data from the survey against data on institutions receiving DCC support revealed similar numbers had a research data management policy. Thirty-eight percent (9 out of 15) receiving DCC support had a research data policy compared with 39% (15 out of 38) of all respondents. However, un-supported institutions, those not supported by the DCC s or not part of the JISCMRD programme were less likely to have a research data management policy (20% [3 out of 15]).

Research Data Policy

Research Data Policy

Similarly, 15% (2 out of 13) of those receiving DCC support had a research data service in place, but this proportion falls to 7% (1 out 15) for un-supported institutions.

Research Data Service

Research Data Service

Thus support, whether through funded projects, DCC support or a mixture of both has a significant impact in policy development. This applies even when such development is not a condition of funding; only MRD-funded projects had such a requirement.

It’s worth noting some overlaps between JISCMRD and DCC support. A few of the institutions in our survey had a bit of both. More generally DCC helped facilitate JISCMRD workshops and have a continuing brief to promote its lessons across other institutions.

DCC research data management planning training

We have had another brilliant training session from the Digital Curation Centre. Once again the topic was research data management planning but this time looking at costing for RDM. The outline for the session was as follows:

  • Introduction
  • What are Data Management Plans and why are they important?
  • Funders’ policies on data management and eligible costs
  • Q&A Discussion: key issues affecting support provision
  • Data Management Plan Examples
  • Breakout session for discussion the example plans
  • What next? Planning future DMP support

Feedback from participants was excellent and I now have some useful resources to help those creating a research data management plan. I will compile these into a post soon.