Data Management Plan defines how the research data generated during the research project is to be managed, both during its duration and after its completion.
In 2019, the National Science Center obliged authors of applications for funding research projects to attach a research data management plan to their applications.
- NCN guidelines for DMP preparation
- Research data management plan – frequently asked questions prepared by the National Science Center.
DMP should be created at the early stage of scientific research. Institutions and agencies granting financial funds for scientific research (National Science Centre (NCN), European Commission, Economic and Social Research Council, Natural Environmental Research Council) require DMP increasingly.
DMP facilitates to plan the procedures related to gaining, processing and sharing research data.
What should the Data Management Plan contain?
- the evaluation of accessible data, the description of drawbacks and needs
- the description of the way of gathering data (i.e. via using a survey, a research tool) and their type (i.e. experimental or observational data)
- documents and standards of data description (metadata)
- information about who is supposed to have copyrights and intellectual property rights, and also about the responsibility for managing them
- requirements and procedures connected with ethical aspects of gathered data
- the description of procedures ensuring the quality data control (the description should include the division of duties and activities related to supervising and controlling the completeness of data)
- a plan concerning the access to data and sharing them (defining the license to make data accessible)
- a short- and long-term strategy of storing and protecting data
- defining what kind of issues will be needed to conduct DMP
Example of Research Data Management Plan
Useful links
- DMPTool – an online tool for creating data management plans; includes examples of plans
- DMPonline – creator of research data management plans
- ARGOS – includes two functionalities: PZD templates and descriptions of data sets
Checklist for a Data Management Plan – allows you to quickly determine what information may be missing from the prepared DMP
