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Research data management

The issue

Research data management is important for institutions as well as researchers. As the volume and complexity of digital research data increases, so does the need to address the challenges of managing, selecting, retaining and storing it.

What you can do

How well are you doing?

To maintain research integrity, institutions and researchers must ensure research data is preserved so that results can be verified and the data reused in future.

You can assess how well your institution or department is managing its research data at present using the CARDIO self-assessment tool.

Assess your research data

You can’t keep all your research data, so how do you decide what to keep? The Digital Curation Centre (DCC)’s guide, addresses issues such as assigning responsibility for appraisal and how to create an appraisal and selection policy.

Create a plan

Most funders require researchers to submit an outline data management plan with grant applications. The DCC’s planning tool guides researchers through the stages of plan development.

Be aware of the legal requirements

All Research Councils now have research data management policies, based on a set of common principles formulated by Research Councils UK.  

Researchers and institutions also need to comply appropriately with Freedom of Information legislation. Our Q&A addresses questions a researcher might ask when faced with an FoI request for research data.

Develop a policy

To manage research data effectively, many institutions will need a formal policy for support and guidance.

The University of Edinburgh’s policy lays down the key points to which the university aspires, while Oxford’s commitment to good research data management requires the deployment of a federated institutional data repository.

Resources and case studies

This topic is explored further in Simon Hodson's blog, seven rules of successful data management in universities. 

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