IG Research Funders and Stakeholders on Open Research and Data Management Policies and Practices

Background

Building on BoFs at RDA Plenaries 10 (Montreal), 11 (Berlin) and 12 (Gaborone), the IG for Research Funders and Stakeholders on Open Research and Data Management Policies and Practices held its first meeting at RDA 13 (Philadelphia). 

Co-chaired by representatives from the Wellcome Trust, National Institutes of Health, the Japan Science and Technology Agency and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, with strong links to the RDA Funders Forum, the IG aims to:  

1. Provide a venue for funders to bring forward issues for discussion with the broader RDA community; 
    
2. Develop deliverables useful to funders and, ideally, other members of the RDA community and research data ecosystem.

At RDA 13, the IG collected feedback and advice from funders and other stakeholders on what the IG deliverables could be.

IG Deliverable: Challenges, Benefits and Best Practices of Implementing RDM Requirements 

Research data management (RDM) policies can include various elements – e.g., requiring the submission (and possibly publishing) of data management plans (DMPs), data deposit (and possibly sharing), and even requirements for research institutions to develop RDM strategies.  In order for funders to develop and implement successful RDM policies, various pieces need to be in place.  For example:

• For DMP requirements: do researchers have the knowledge and institutional support to create DMPs?  What tools exist to support the creation of DMPs, and are they accessible to researchers?  Can the funding agency process DMPs?  How should the DMPs be evaluated?  How should the costs associated with implementing DMPs be identified, assessed and provisioned?  Can the DMPs be updated through the research project?  Should the DMPs (or elements of the DMPs) be published?
   
• For deposit / sharing requirements: does the infrastructure exist to allow researchers to deposit the data? How do management, deposit and sharing requirements align with disciplinary norms and publisher policies?  Should funders allow for an embargo period before researchers are required to share data?
   
• For institutional RDM strategies: how well equipped are research institutions to develop and implement RDM strategies?  What impact do these strategies have?
   

Our IG aims to produce a document that discusses the challenges, best practices and benefits of developing and implementing RDM requirements.  We seek to involve stakeholders from across the RDM ecosystem – e.g., researchers, librarians, institutions, funders, publishers, infrastructure providers, etc. – in developing the deliverable.  

In addition to leading to a better understanding of the challenges, best practices and benefits of developing and implementing RDM requirements, this work will also provide a unique opportunity to test (and possibly discuss in the report) the usefulness of RDA outputs and other resources developed by the RDM community.

Session Objectives

The session at RDA 14 will focus on confirming the parameters for the deliverable, including:

• which existing or planned RDM policies/pilots could be the focus;
• what questions the deliverable would seek to answer;
• which stakeholders would like to be involved; and
• which RDA outputs (and other resources) could be used.