Research funders' data management requirements
- BBSRC
- British Heart Foundation
- Cancer Research UK
- EPSRC
- ESRC
- Horizon Europe
- MRC
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- NERC
- STFC
- Wellcome
BBSRC data sharing policy
Applying for funding
All applications seeking research grant funding from BBSRC must submit a data management plan.
DMP template and guidance for BBSRC at DMPonline
Preserving your data
All data required to validate the findings should be retained for 10 years after completion of a research project, regardless of its sharing status.
Archival and preservation
Sharing your data
All BBSRC-funded projects are expected to make efforts to share data where possible, but the following data is strongly expected to be shared:
- Data arising from high volume experimentation
- Low throughput data arising from long time series or cumulative approaches
- Models generated using systems approaches
Published results should always include information on how to access the supporting data.
You should release your data in a timely fashion according to established practice in your field, and generally no later than the publication of the findings. In the absence of established practice, this should be within three years of generation of the dataset.
Support provided
Funding to support management and sharing of research data may be requested from BBSRC as part of the full economic cost of a project. This includes staff time (e.g. to prepare data for sharing/archival) and physical resources (e.g. storage and network capacity).
Monitoring
Adherence to a BBSRC-funded project's data management and sharing strategies will be monitored through the Final Report assessment.
The BHF currently has no formal policy or requirements on research data management, although they have expressed support for the principle of public access to research data.
CRUK data sharing policy
The Cancer Research UK policy applies to all CRUK-funded research, and encompasses all high-quality data regardless of whether it has been used in a publication.
Submission of a data sharing and preservation strategy
Applying for funding
All research proposals for Cancer Research UK funding must include a data management plan.
DMP template and guidance for Cancer Research UK at DMPonline
Preserving your data
All data should be retained for 10 years after completion of a research project, regardless of its sharing status, in line with the Imperial College research data management policy: this will cover the basic CRUK requirement of 5 years.
Sharing your data
Data must be shared in a "timely and responsible manner", in line with standard practice in the relevant research area. A reasonable period of exclusive use is permitted, as are delays or restrictions to allow commercialisation and respect obligations of confidentiality.
Appropriate permissions and safeguards must be in place to protect the privacy and interests of human participants in research.
Support provided
In 2015 Cancer Research UK changed its approach so that “appropriately justified” costs can be included in grant proposals. Specifically, applicants can now include “proportionate, relevant data management sharing activities and resources as a running cost in applications.” This may cover, for example, data managers’ salary costs, and/or archiving and repository costs, but not open access (OA) article processing charges which are dealt with separately.
Monitoring
Adherence will be monitored through the committee's grant review process and the end-of-grant report.
EPSRC data sharing policy
The EPSRC policy applies to all organisations in receipt of EPSRC research funding.
Applying for funding
The EPSRC expect a data management plan to be in place for every EPSRC-funded project.
DMP template and guidance for EPSRC at DMPonline
Preserving your data
All data required to validate the findings should be retained for 10 years after the date of its last use by the original researchers or a third party.
Sharing your data
Metadata describing the data held must be made freely available on the internet within 12 months of the data being generated. This metadata must be sufficient to allow others to understand what research data exists, why, when and how it was generated, and how to access it. Where access to the data is restricted the published metadata should also give the reason and summarise the conditions which must be satisfied for access to be granted.
Published results should always include information on how to access the supporting data.
Support provided
Funding to support management and sharing of research data may be requested from EPSRC to cover requirements above what is provided as standard by Imperial. This may include staff time (e.g. to prepare data for sharing/archival) and physical resources (e.g. storage and network capacity).
Monitoring
Sharing of research data will be monitored through periodic "dip-stick" testing of organisations' research outputs.
ESRC data sharing policy
Applying for funding
ESRC grant applicants planning to generate data are required to submit a data management and sharing plan as part of the grant application process.
Preserving your data
ESRC award holders are expected to make use of existing standards for data management and to make data available for further re-use.
Sharing your data
Publications should be made available via the ESRC research catalogue.
Research data should be made available to the scientific community in a timely and responsible manner. The data service supports data sharing.
Support provided
The ESRC offer extensive support to researchers. Data centre staff will assist researchers to plan their data management and sharing, and providing ongoing support throughout the project to final deposit and reuse.
Monitoring
The ESRC states it will monitor compliance with its policies. The final payment of a grant may be withheld if data has not been offered for deposit to the required standard, unless a waiver has been agreed in advance.
How to deposit data in the ReShare repository
The Horizon Europe data sharing policy
The Horizon 2020 policy on open access to research data applies to projects enrolled in the Open Research Data Pilot. As of 2017 the Open Research data Pilot was extended to cover all the thematic areas of Horizon 2020.
It is possible to fully or partly opt out of the pilot, or projects in other areas to opt in.
Applying for funding
A data management plan must be delivered within the first six months of the project and this deliverable must be mentioned in the proposal.
DMP template and guidance for Horizon 2020 at DMPonline
Sharing your data
The data and associated metadata needed to validate the published results of the project along with other data of value as mentioned in the data management plan, must be deposited in a research data repository. It must be possible for third parties to access, mine, exploit, reproduce and disseminate this data.
Support provided
The European Commission have published guidance to support applicants in meeting the Horizon 2020 data requirements.
Monitoring
Compliance will be monitored through delivery of the initial data management plan and subsequent updated versions included with the mid-term and final reviews.
MRC data sharing policy
Applying for funding
Applicants are expected to submit a data management plan at the grant proposal stage. Note: the template cannot be uploaded in the new Funding Service (TFS) as an attachment. Instead MRC recommend copying and/or re-using the numbered headings into TFS to provide structure to the DMP.
Preserving your data
Primary research data must be retained in their original form within the research establishment that generated them for a minimum of ten years.
Sharing your data
The MRC expects publications to be available promptly and encourages researchers to make data available with as few restrictions as possible.
Support provided
The MRC offers guidance on data sharing including support for data management planning.
Good research practice policies and guidance
A template is provided for DMPs, as well as guidance for peer-reviewers when assessing plans.
Monitoring
No statement is given on how compliance with MRC's open access or data sharing policies will be monitored.
NIH data management and sharing policy
NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) policy
Applying for funding
As of January 25 2023, applicants planning to generate scientific data will submit DMS Plans to NIH as part of the funding application or proposal.
Preserving your data
Under the 2023 DMS policy, NIH encourages investigators to use an established repository. When selecting a repository, investigators should choose based on factors such as the sensitivity of the data, the size and complexity of the dataset, and the volume of requests anticipated.
Sharing data
Data should be made available no later than the acceptance for publication of the main findings from the final dataset. Data from large studies can be released in waves as data become available or as they are published.
Any restrictions should be discussed in the data sharing plan section of the funding application. Researchers should carefully plan the study design, informed consent documents, and structure of resulting dataset prior to initiating the study
Support provided
Applicants may request funds for data sharing and archiving. The financial issues should be addressed in the budget section of the application.
Monitoring
NIH will delay processing an award if publications arising from it are not in compliance with the NIH Policy.
NERC data sharing policy
Applying for funding
A mandatory, single page, Outline Data Management Plan (ODMP) is required for all grant and fellowship applications.
Preserving your data
It is expected that data will be submitted to the NERC data centre. An extensive data centre infrastructure is in place to facilitate long-term curation. NERC will maintain a Data Value Checklist to identify environmental data of long-term value.
Sharing your data
Researchers are expected to offer data for deposit in one of the NERC data centres. NERC will supply the environmental data it holds for free, apart from a few special cases. Information on all data held within the data centres will be made available through the NERC Data Discovery Service.
Find a NERC facility or resource
Support provided
Support for researchers on data creation and management is provided through the specialist data centres.
The NERC data centres support curation of environmental data holdings of long-term value.
Monitoring
Compliance with the open access policy will be taken into consideration when considering further applications for funding.
Those funded by NERC who do not meet the data policy requirements risk having award payments withheld or becoming ineligible for future funding from NERC.
STFC data policy
Applying for funding
A data management plan is mandatory and should be no longer than two pages of A4.
Data management plans are expected for projects that will result in the production or collection of scientific data.
Preserving your data
STFC would normally expect data to be managed through an institutional repository, e.g. as operated by a research organisation (such as STFC), a university, a laboratory or an independently managed subject specific database.
The data management plan should specify which data are to be deposited in a repository, where and for how long, with appropriate justification.
Sharing your data
Data resulting from publicly funded research should be made publicly available after a limited period, unless there are specific reasons why this should not happen.
Support provided
The data policy points researchers to the DCC for support.
Several data centres, services and research portals are in place, such as the UK Solar System Data Centre, the Chemical Database Service and the Diamond Data Portal.
Monitoring
It is not clear if compliance with STFC's open access policy is monitored.
Wellcome data management and sharing policy
Wellcome data, software and materials management and sharing policy
Applying for funding
The Wellcome policy on data, software and materials management and sharing requires applicants to complete a comprehensive Output Managements Plan that sets out how researchers will manage and share significant data, software or materials resulting from Wellcome-funded research.
Preserving your data
Data should be maintained securely for a minimum of 10 years.
Sharing your data
Wellcome supports unrestricted access to publications via PubMed Central
Researchers are to maximise the availability of data with as few restrictions as possible. Data should be made available on publication of results.
Support provided
Wellcome does not run its own data centre, but supports UK PubMed Central.
Where there is no provision, responsibility falls to the institutions in which Wellcome-funded researchers are based.
Wellcome considers that timely and appropriate data management and sharing should represent an integral component of the research process. Applicants may therefore include any costs associated with their proposed approach as part of their proposal.
Monitoring
Compliance with the open access policy is monitored.