The transition to open science started with efforts to support open access to research publications, but the agenda has now expanded to embrace open data. Research funders are starting to require that the results of publicly-funded research and the underlying data be made available along with the publications they accompany.

Policies on research data are sometimes dealt with at national level [1], although research funders often play a role. Funders normally have widely different policies, based on their remit and the type of data created by researchers in the field. In the UK, RCUK has set out clear expectations [2] that higher education institutions must take responsibility for RDM, preservation and sharing.

Researcher data is not limited to STEM disciplines: your research will likely generate data and, if you receive public funding, you may well be subject to a data management policy.

What do funders want?

The Digital Curation Centre [3] and the University of Bristol [4] curate a list of funders’ requirements, and the latter provides pdf guides on funders’ requirements. For more detailed information on policies, you can refer to the following pages:

• Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
• Cancer Research UK (CRUK)
• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• European Commission
• Gates Foundation
• Medical Research Council (MRC)
• National Institute of Health
• National Institute for Health Research
• Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• Royal Society
• Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
• Wellcome Trust
• British Academy

In addition, remember to check your organisation’s internal data management policy. This will be different from funders’ policies, but largely overlapping. You should be aware of what your organisation expects, too – get in touch with your local research data management team (this is likely part of library services or information services) if you have questions about the relationship between organisational and funder policies.