All applications seeking research grant funding from BBSRC must submit a data management plan. This should include concise plans for data management and sharing as part of the research grant proposal, or provide reasons why data sharing is not possible or appropriate.
The plan will be included in applications as a separate mandatory attachment.
The page limit for the plan is maximum one side of A4.
You must use this document to cover the plans for data management and sharing. Use of this space allocation for any other purpose will result in withdrawal of the application. BBSRC reserves the right to withdraw proposals that do not adhere to these guidelines.
What to include
BBSRC recognises that plans for sharing data will vary according to the type of data collected. Data sharing should be driven by scientific benefit and should also be cost effective. Data should be shared using established standards and existing resources where this is possible.
You may wish to include details of:
- data areas and data types – the volume, type and content of data that will be generated, for example experimental measurements, models, records and images
- standards and metadata – the standards and methodologies that will be adopted for data collection and management and why these have been selected
- relationship to other data available in public repositories
- secondary use – further intended and/or foreseeable research uses for the completed datasets
- methods for data sharing – planned mechanisms for making these data available, for example through deposition in existing public databases or on request, including access mechanisms
- proprietary data – any restrictions on data sharing due to the need to protect proprietary or patentable data
- timeframes – timescales for public release of data
- format of the final dataset.
See our data sharing policy for full guidance.
Assessment of the data management plan
An application’s data management plan will be assessed by reviewers and BBSRC standard research grant Research Committees or assessment Panels. Standard (sometimes known as ‘responsive’) grants are open to a wide range of research and approaches within BBSRC’s remit.
The plan will be considered separately from the scientific excellence of the proposed research; however, an application’s credibility will suffer if peer review agrees the statement is inappropriate. In the case where a highly-rated proposal has an inappropriate data management plan, research committees and panels may choose to offer conditional awards or provide specific feedback to the applicants. Appropriate plans are expected to be those where the proposed data sharing activities are in-line with current best practice in the field and both the scientific and cost benefits are considered.
Contact
Policy
Email: policy@bbsrc.ukri.org