Research data management policy

Anyone responsible for research data management should comply with the University research data policy.

The management of research data reflects our:

• appreciation of the value of our data – to us and to others
• approach of “share what you can – explain where you can’t”
• commitment to the open sharing of research data of long term value and underpinning published results
• recognition of our duty to our funders.

1. Research data will be managed to agreed standards throughout the research data lifecycle and according to funder requirements.
2. Responsibility for research data management during any research project or programme lies with responsible owners such as Principal Investigators (PIs).
3. The University is responsible for the provision of training, support and advice on research data management.
4. In addition to specific funder requirements, a data management plan must be created for each proposed research project or funding application to allow costing and infrastructure planning.
5. All projects should ensure data management plans and practice address the capture, management, integrity, confidentiality, preservation, sharing and publication of research data, including compliance with relevant legal and ethical frameworks.
6. Where possible, researchers should seek to recover from the research funder the direct costs of managing research data generated by projects.
7. The PI should ensure all relevant research data are assessed and offered for deposit and preservation in an appropriate University, national or international data service or domain repository, unless specified otherwise in the data management plan.
8. Any published papers which rely on data generated by the authors should include a data access statement. Authors should also apply good data citation principles and formally cite data which has directly informed the conclusions drawn in their papers.
9. Data should not be deposited with any organisation that does not commit to its access and availability for re-use, unless this is a condition of the project funding or arising from other requirements.
10. Non-digital data assets or digital data held outside the University of Leeds data repository will be recorded in the University of Leeds data registry.
11. Research and Innovation Board will be responsible for reviewing and updating the policy.

The University recognises the following benefits of implementing this policy:

• support for the re-use of data
• benefit future generations
• improved data integrity, security and access management
• opportunities for further research collaboration
• improved research reproducibility and validation
• further development of research skills
• the ability to cite data as a publication
• improved institutional research reputation
• improved relationship with research funders.

This plan is in effect from December 2017.