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Data Management Plan – NIH update

For NIH, please view the new NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy page on the Office for Research’s website.

A data management plan (DMP) is a written document that describes the data you expect to acquire or generate during the course of a research project, how you will manage, describe, analyze, and store those data, and what mechanisms you will use at the end of your project to share and preserve your data.

Many funding agencies require a DMP with every funding request. In particular, federal agencies believe that knowledge created with federal funds should be made available as broadly as possible and within a reasonable period of time. Each agency or directorate creates its own set of policies for data management. SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has compiled an excellent resource with information about the data management and data sharing requirements from all the federal funding agencies.

Your data management plan should address each of the following topics:

  • types of data, samples, physical collections, software, curriculum materials, and other materials that will be produced over the course of the project;
  • existing data that will be incorporated into your research project;
  • standards to be used for data and metadata format and content (where existing standards are absent or deemed inadequate, this should be documented along with any proposed solutions or remedies);
  • policies for access and sharing, including provisions for appropriate protection of privacy, confidentiality, security, intellectual property, or other rights or requirements;
  • policies and provisions for reuse, re-distribution, and the production of derivatives; and
  • plans for archiving data, samples, and other research products, and for preservation of access to them.

Please see the Data Management Plan sample

The new NIH Policy on Data Management and Sharing is effective as of January 25, 2023. The Policy is a substantial change from the previous NIH data management plan. Please read the new policy here.  For more detail and guidance, please view the attached PowerPoint presentation for an overview of the new policy, links to resources on the NIH website, and to data repositories, and other resources.