We have a draft research data management policy progressing through various working groups and then on to committees at the University. However, we could not have reached this stage without the support of staff from the Digital Curation Centre. They gave a workshop where they advised us on the points our policy should cover and directed us to appropriate policies of other universities.

The starting point was to consider RCUK’s common principles on data and how we might align our research data management policy to these principles. We then looked at examples of research data management policies from other universities. We were particularly impressed with the University of Edinburgh’s research data management policy and this provided the starting point for our own policy. Talking through this policy and  others we realised that it was possible to separate policy statements and stakeholder responsibilities. This is exactly what the University of Oxford have done in their policy on the management of research data and records. So, we have incorporated elements of this policy too.