This update was sent to the University research community on September 1, 2022.
As many of you may know, the NIH recently released a new聽聽which requires that all NIH funding applications submitted on or after January 25, 2023 must include a聽data management and sharing plan聽鈥� and that you comply with the final, approved version of that plan.
Similar data management and sharing mandates will undoubtedly be issued by other federal agencies (and many other research sponsors) in the near future – as signaled, for example, by a new White House Memorandum on聽, released just last week (Aug 25).
As the White House memo notes, open sharing of research data is essential not only to ensuring ongoing public support for the work we do, but also to ensuring that our work as researchers is of the greatest benefit possible to the people it is intended to serve.听聽The memo cites the example of immediate public access to COVID-19 research data, as a case study of the powerful, positive impact of such data sharing.
The new NIH DMS Policy will have a significant impact on our research community.听聽To start with, all NIH-funded research that generates scientific data – with only a few notable initial exceptions like training grants (T) and fellowships (F) – will be required to include a DMS plan.听聽These plans should be a two-page (or less) description of which data you will preserve or share, how you will accomplish that (listing any tools, software, data standards, repositories, ORCIDs, etc.), and who will be responsible for managing compliance with the plan.
The NIH considers 鈥渟cientific data鈥� to be聽any data that validates or replicates research findings, whether or not they are used to support scholarly publication.听聽NIH also stipulates that data should be shared when findings are published or at the end of the award – whichever comes first – and that you聽鈥渕aximize appropriate data sharing鈥� in your plans.听聽The policy also notes that these plans will be reviewed by NIH program staff and that peer reviewers will only consider a proposal if the data management budget is acceptable.听 To that end, we will provide more guidance/information regarding allowable DMS costs for inclusion in NIH grant applications in the near future.
Open, rapid and public sharing of research data is here to stay – and will ultimately make for better science.听聽Moreover, the data we share can be cited as a scientific work product on our CVs, biosketches, progress reports and bibliographies.听聽To that end, an聽 can help you track reuse of your data, similar to citations of your publications.
As with any mandate, this isn鈥檛 optional.听聽Failure to comply could result in additional terms or conditions on your grant or even termination of a grant 鈥� and could impact your ability to obtain future NIH funding.
Colleagues across the University are actively working to put systems in place to help you comply with this policy. For example, Miner Library has created an聽聽to facilitate compliance with the policy.听聽In addition, a committee convened by Steven Wormsley and Dirk Bohmann recently completed an evaluation of聽聽products, with input from a diverse group of users representing the School of Arts & Sciences, Hajim School of Engineering, School of Medicine & Dentistry, Simon Business School, and Central Administration (including users from 35 different departments across the University).听聽The vast majority of these users selected聽聽as an ELN product that best met their needs – and URMC 糖心logo & Academic IT is now in the process of making this available to our research community.
For many of us, one facet of meeting these new DMS requirements may include depositing data into pre-existing community or .听 In other scientific disciplines, similar community repositories are already well-established, and enable researchers to deposit data prior to publication (using community-determined formats and metadata standards), while also providing access to tools developed to work on deposited data (e.g.,聽).听 We strongly encourage you to take advantage of such resources, where possible.
At the same time, enhanced support for other aspects of DMS is also in the works – including improved data storage resources, enhanced cloud computing infrastructure, and the creation of a data deidentification service for researchers working with datasets that include protected health information (PHI).听聽We鈥檒l share 糖心logo on these, as they鈥檙e developed and implemented.
Some initial steps that you can do now, before the policy goes into effect on January 25:
- Register for an聽聽today (if you didn鈥檛 already do so).
- Become familiar with the NIH policy:聽
- 鲍蝉别听聽to try drafting a plan for your current work based on the聽 or use the 聽to create your Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP).
- Look over the .听 We strongly recommend using a non-modular budget (whenever allowable), and note that for grants submitted on or after Jan. 25, it is permissible to request funds for depositing data in archival repositories, as well as for data deidentification.
- Familiarize yourself with this growing聽
- Adopt an聽聽for your research group, if you didn鈥檛 already do so.听聽As noted above, we recommend聽.听聽URMC 糖心logo & Academic IT is now in the process of making this available to our research community.
- Attend an聽聽on September 22, 1:30-3 pm (EDT).
To learn more about Data Management and Sharing please .
If you have questions, please contact Miner_Information@urmc.rochester.edu.