Speaker
Description
Recently, funding agencies have begun to require sections on research data management in grant applications and the submission of a detailed Data Management Plan (DMP) during the initial phase of a funded research project. These DMPs are set as milestones to be achieved for a successful research project. Scientists often view DMPs as a burden and additional work that distracts them from active research. This is due to different requirements from different funders, lack of established routines for writing DMPs, and lack of tools and services for efficient research data management.
We analyzed the DMP guidelines provided by the European Union for its Horizon Europe and ERC (European Research Council) grants, as well as those of the German Research Foundation (DFG). We summarized the requirements and topics to be covered, contrasting similarities and differences while keeping an eye on the different details.
This poster will provide an overview of the basics of writing a DMP and will emphasize that writing is only a small part. The main work is preparation, thorough discussion, and decision making about how to manage the data. The groundwork includes documentation and data quality, storage and archiving, legal aspects, data sharing, and accessibility, to name a few. Some funders require researchers to apply the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable) data principles for research data management. We will present our hands-on workshop for planning and writing DMPs and provide examples of how NOMAD, a web-based open source service, can support research data management according to the FAIR principles. Thorough data management planning in the early stages of a research project can prevent many of the hurdles that can arise in relation to the above issues. Therefore, a well-thought-out data management routine is critical to the success of the project.