Funder data management requirements

Find out what funders expect.

What does your funder require?

If your funder requires a Data Management Plan and is missing from this page please contact us and we will add it as soon as possible.

UKRI Funders (formerly RCUK)

UKRI Overview of data management principles and policies:

Making your data as open as possible means that publicly funded research is more:

•     transparent and easily scrutinised, helping to increase public trust;
•     easy to re-use and build upon;
•     collaborative and efficient.

There may be reasons to restrict access to your research data, for example for security, confidentiality or commercial reasons. However, UKRI funded data should be made as open as possible and only closed when necessary.

UKRI research data policies

UKRI award holders must follow the research data policy of the UKRI and the relevant funding council, you are also expected to follow good research data management practices throughout your project.

Ownership of the data generated from the research funded by UKRI or its councils resides with the researchers or their institutions. They should maintain and manage copyright and intellectual property ownership of data so that underlying research materials remain as open as possible.

Each research council has its own data, sharing, and management policies and guidance, which you must follow:

• Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): A Data Management Plan (DMP) is required, peer reviewers will be asked to assess whether the Data Management Plans are feasible, sensible, appropriate and valid based on their knowledge of their specialist area. The institution will be expected not to submit an application if it does not comply with AHRC requirements.

• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC): A data sharing plan is required, which may include details of: data areas, types and formats; standards and metadata; secondary use; methods for data sharing; and timeframes for release. Guidance is available under 'Data Sharing Areas' on p7 of the BBSRC Data Sharing Policy.

• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC): The EPSRC does not require data management or sharing plans, but expects data to be preserved and shared - see the EPSRC data policy.  
• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC): ESRC grant applicants who plan to generate data are responsible for preparing and submitting data management and sharing plans for their research projects as an integral part of the application.  
• Medical Research Council (MRC): A data management plan should be provided at the proposal stage, as per the MRC guidelines. A template is provided explaining what to include. This covers a description of the data, data collection, data management, data security, data sharing and responsibilities.    

• Natural Environment Research Council (NERC): A mandatory, single page, Outline Data Management Plan (ODMP) is required for all grant and fellowship applications, as per the NERC guidelines. Where appropriate, a full DMP will also be written in collaboration with the NERC Environmental Data Centres.    

• Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC): Data management plans are expected for projects that will result in the production or collection of scientific data. STFC guidelines recommends that eight areas should be addressed.

Other UK Funders

• National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the UK’s largest funder of health and care research and a major funder of applied health research in low and middle income countries. NIHR ‘strongly supports data sharing in the most appropriate way.’ Data Management Plans are required; data sharing statements (a.k.a. data access statements) are must be included with published findings.
• Cancer Research UK (CRUK): CRUK asks researchers to submit a data sharing plan, covering various themes as outlined in its data sharing guidelines.    

• Wellcome Trust: An Output Management Plan (OMP)  should set out your approach for maximising the value of the following types of outputs: datasets generated by your research; original software created in the course of your research; new materials you create – like antibodies, cell lines and reagents; intellectual property (IP) such as patents, copyright, design rights and confidential know-how.

• British Heart Foundation:  As a Condition of Grant, all grant holders (with the exception of BHF Chairs, Infrastructure Grants, Strategic Initiatives and BHF Centres of Research Excellence or Centres of Regenerative Medicine) will need to submit outcome data to the British Heart Foundation using Researchfish, their research evaluation system. Safeguards should be in place to respect the confidentiality of patients, while also ensuring that medical researchers can gain access to patient data within a secure environment.

International Funders

• Horizon Europe: Is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion. Applicants and recipients of grants can find the Data Management Plan Template in the Reference Documents section by searching "Data".  
• US National Science Foundation: Proposals submitted or due on or after 18 January 18 2011, must include a supplementary document of no more than two pages labeled “Data Management Plan”. This supplementary document should describe how the proposal will conform to NSF policy on the dissemination and sharing of research results.
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is the primary United States’ medical research agency. The NIH expects researchers and institutions in receipt of funding to plan and budget for data management and sharing; submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan with funding applications.

The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) also provides information about funders' data plan requirements, and is the source for most of the funders' data management requirement summaries listed on this page.