Research Council Requirements¶

Research councils are requiring data management plans as part of grant proposals and their policies also stipulate that research data created through their funding should be published for other researchers to use.

The DCC provides an overview of funders' data policies and individual pages for each funder's policy. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) have also published a report on funder requirements for data preservation and publication.

The AHRC and EPSRC policies are most relevant to work at C4DM.

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)¶

From AHRC Funding Guide (PDF downloadable from AHRC web-site)

Deposit of resources or datasets
Grant Holders in all areas must make any significant electronic resources or datasets created as a result of research funded by the Council available in an accessible and appropriate depository for at least three years after the end of their grant. The choice of depository should be appropriate to the nature of the project and accessible to the targeted audiences for the material produced.
If you are a Grant Holder in the area of archaeology and decide to deposit with The Archaeology Data Service (ADS), then you should consult them at or before the start of the proposed research to discuss and agree the form and extent of electronic materials to be deposited with the ADS. If the deposit occurs after 31 March 2013, then there will be charge for this deposit.

Self Archiving
The AHRC requires that funded researchers:
• ensure deposit of a copy of any resultant articles published in journals or conference proceedings in appropriate repository
• wherever possible, ensure deposit of the bibliographical metadata relating to such articles, including a link to the publisher’s website, at or around the time of publication.
Full implementation of these requirements must be undertaken such that current copyright and licensing policies, for example, embargo periods and provisions limiting the use of deposited content to non-commercial purposes, are respected by authors.

The DCC provide a summary of AHRC policy.

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)¶

The EPSRC data management principles state that:

• research data should be made freely available with as few restrictions as possible
• data with long term value should remain accessible and usable for future research
• metadata should be made available to enable other researchers to understand the potential for further research and re-use of the data
• data management policies and plans should exist for all data – and be adhered to!
• published results should always include information on how to access the supporting data
• all users of research data should acknowledge the sources of their data

The DCC provide a summary of EPSRC policy.