Writing a Data Management Plan

The college expects that a data management plan be created for all RCUK research funding requests. This allows visibility of the style, size and format of data being created and ensure the college can best support your needs. It’s important you are aware of their requirements and create your plan accordingly.

The Digital Curation Centre Checklist for a Data Management Plan provides guidance on 13 key areas which should be included within a Data Management Plan. These questions are:

What data will you collect or create?
How will the data be collected or created?
What documentation and metadata will accompany the data?
How will you manage any ethical issues?
How will you manage copyright and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) issues?
How will the data be stored and backed up during the research?
How will you manage access and security?
Which data should be retained, shared, and/or preserved?
What is the long-term preservation plan for the dataset?
How will you share the data?
Are any restrictions on data sharing required?
Who will be responsible for data management?
What resources will you require to deliver your plan?

A good data management plan will help by supporting reuse beyond the life of the project that generated it. It can also demonstrate to participants and commercial partners how their data will be protected. Research funding bodies increasingly require grant holders to develop and implement Data Management Plans (DMPs) as part of the application process. These might also be know as either a 'Technical Plan' or a 'Data Sharing Plan' rather than a Data Management Plan.

The best way to get started writing any of the required plans is to begin with a suitable template. We recommend you use the DMPonline tool for this, as it incorporates templates for all UK research funders who require a plan, and provides general guidance for each (please see below under funder guidance as to their requirements).

Not all plans require a great amount of detail, but you may wish to cover:

Data collection: what data you will collect and how
Documentation and metadata: what will you or other researchers need to know to interpret the data in the future
Ethics and legal compliance: what restrictions exist on the use and sharing of the data
Storage and backup: how will the data be kept safe and secure
Selection and preservation: how will you preserve the data for the long term and what criteria will you use to choose
Data sharing: which data will be suitable for sharing and how
Responsibilities and resources: who is responsible for implementing the plan and what resources and specialist expertise will be required

Other common names for a Data Management Plan include:

Data Management and Sharing Plan
Access and Data Management Plan
Statement on Data Sharing
Data Access Plan
Technical Plan
DMP

How to use DMP Online

Funding bodies increasingly require their grant-holders to produce and maintain Data Management Plans (DMPs), both at the bid-preparation stage and after funding has been secured. DMPonline has been developed by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) to enable you to build and edit DMPs according to the requirements stipulated by the major UK funders.

Go to DMPonline and sign up to get a free account. Make sure that you choose the RVC in under the organisation dropdown box.
Choose the template of your funder.
Select "Royal Veterinary College" as your organisation. Create your plan.
Edit the plan. You can save a draft plan at any point and come back to it later. You can also share your plan with colleagues.
Export the plan once you have finished the DMP

Funder Guidance

AHRC

AHRC provides guidance about completing a data management plan (known as a Technical Plan) as part of a funding application.

The Technical Plan must be written as a single document and has a limit of four pages.

BBSRC

All applicants for BBSRC must include a data sharing statement with their grant application.

The BBSRC Data Sharing policy page contains the:

Data Sharing Policy

Data Sharing Leaflet

Cancer Research UK

All applicants seeking funding from Cancer Research UK will be required to submit a data management plan (referred to as a data sharing plan) as part of their research grant proposal.

Further guidance from CRUK can be found here.

FAQ’s

EPSRC

The EPSRC does not require researchers to submit data management plans with research grant applications. However, it does expect data management policies and plans to be in place.

EPSRC expectations regarding the management of and access to EPSRC-funded research data are mandatory from 1 May 2015.

ESRC

ESRC applicants who plan to generate data from their research, must submit a data management plan as part of their Je-S application. The ESRC Research Data Policy page includes guidance about data management plans.

Research Funding Guide

Framework for Research Ethics

MRC

All applicants submitting funding proposals to the MRC are required to include a Data Management Plan (DMP) as an integral part of the application.

MRC guidance on DMP

MRC template for a data management plan

Guidance for reviewers in assessing a data management plan

Guidance for Applicants

NERC

All NERC proposals require an Outline Data Management Plan to identify data sets of long term value that should be made available to NERC data centres for archiving and reuse at the end of the fellowship or grant.

Data Management Planning

Outline Data Management Plan

Data management planning lifecycle (pdf)

Full Data Management Plan (.docx)

NERC Data Policy

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust provides guidance about developing a data management and sharing plan as part of a funding application:

Guidance for researchers: Developing a data management and sharing plan