Research Data Management

Research data management involves creating a data management plan, decisions on securely storing data both during and after the research project, organizing and structuring the data, curating the data by creating metadata, and ethical and commercial considerations regarding acquiring and sharing data.

The European Commision and a number of national funders now ask for a Data Management Plan (DMP) as part of either the funding application or the grant agreement. A DMP should describe the data your research will generate, how you will ensure its curation, preservation, and sustainability, what parts of that data will be open and how you plan to achieve this. One DMP should be prepared to cover all datasets’. Practical assistance in creating at DMP online.

One of the considerations regarding research data needs to be balancing commercial opportunities with making research data open and accessible. In the Life Sciences, there can be opportunities to work with industry to develop products or objectives which have a direct impact on society. It is wise for researchers to consider which approach, commercialization or open data, will have the most benefit for society.

Another important aspect of research data management is data ethics and security. Any data that contains sensitive and/or personal information e.g. identities of participants, patient data, etc. should be stored as securely as possible during the project and only be shared with care and consideration afterward.

RELEVANCE TO OPEN SCIENCE
The European Commision states that sharing data should not necessarily mean opening up all your research data. Rather, they follow the principle of "as open as possible, as closed as necessary" and focus on encouraging sound data management as an essential part of research best practice.