Statements on research data management in funding proposals

• Take the RDM chapter or the DMP seriously and do not postpone the draft until submission deadline is approaching! The importance of the RDM topic is increasing constantly and hence, its impact on the reviewers` verdict is growing as well.

• Stay on topic. It is ONLY about the handling of DATA. Information on your planned journal articles and attended conferences or your opinion on the significance of open science in general is rather out of place here.

• Try to be as concrete as possible and avoid general phrases. Example: Instead of “We regularly backup our data” a statement like “The data is backed up daily on servers of the IT department of LUH via the service Backup & Restore” is preferable.

• Use short sentences (or just key points) carrying a clear message.

• Be realistic. Only promise what you can actually put into practice. If you mention concrete services, infrastructure and so on, check beforehand whether these in fact meet your requirements.

• Carefully read the proposal guidelines, the DMP template or the funding tender to find out what kind of information the funder expects exactly. Check if your text actually covers every point mentioned there!

Practically all funders expecting RDM statements demand that you comply with the so-called FAIR principles. Thus, your data should be findable, accessible, interoperable (with other data and technical systems) and re-usable for third parties.

In your proposal or in an accompanying data management plan you set out, how exactly you are going to ensure compliance with the FAIR principles. The background for this requirement is that data generated with public funding should be processed and analysed as thoroughly as possible, even beyond the original project context. Furthermore, research results based on FAIR data are easier to understand and verify.

At LUH, a wide range of support services for data and information management is available. The Guidelines for Handling Research Data at Leibniz Universität Hannover offer basic recommendations for action. The website on research data management provides detailed information, materials and tools. The Team Research Data Management offers project-accompanying advice and organises introductory and in-depth courses on research data management, which can also be adapted to specific disciplines. In addition, exchange on RDM topics takes place in regular networking events.

The IT centre at LUH (LUIS) provides infrastructure services, central hosting of RDM-relevant software and technical support. It also hosts an institutional research data repository, in which LUH members may publish their research data and generate a corresponding DOI.

TIB offers discipline-specific research data repositories and RDM consulting services in the scope of the disciplinary information services "Mobility and Transport" and "BAUdigital". The DOI service functions as a point of contact for institutions that wish to generate DOIs for research data archived and published in their (institutional) data centres. In addition, research data related to a doctoral thesis may be published in the LUH Text Repository operated by the TIB, together with the thesis itself.

In Section B (Project proposal – Technical description) of the Standard Application Form (HE RIA, IA), under point 1.2 (Methodology, page 8), you should address the topic of Open Science, which also includes the publication of research data. In particular, you should specify the types of data you are working with, how you are taking the FAIR principles into account, and what resources (staff and funding) you are budgeting for the processing and long-term preservation of the data.

If your application is successful, you must also submit a data management plan (DMP) within six months after the project started. This document should be updated regularly and supplemented where necessary throughout the project, but at least at the mid-point and at the end of the project period. The data underpinning research results must be published open access ‘as early as possible’, i.e. normally before the end of the project period.

You can find further information in the annotated standard contract, known as the ‘Annotated Grant Model Agreement’, in Annex 5 (HE Communication, Dissemination, Open Science and Visibility) on pages 382–383, and in the explanatory notes under point 7, ‘Open science: Research data management’, on pages 389–392. Furthermore, Chapter 17 “Open Science” of the Horizon Europe Programme Guide sets out the requirements for research data management and data management plans (pp. 45–53).

The information given in the application form may comprise up to one page. There is no such limit for the data management plan generated during the project, however. Its extent conforms to the requirements of your project. In case of interdisciplinary and multi-institutional joint projects you should calculate with no less than three pages, since you need to consider diverging local circumstances and disciplinary data management requirements. However, about ten pages are common.

TIP: Unless all RDM is centralised with one project partner, keep the DMP for the overall project relatively brief and general, and set out the details in partner- or sub-project-specific sub-DMP. This approach helps to maintain clarity and enables a better description of local conditions (e.g. locally available IT infrastructure).

The Programme Guide (Chapter 17, ‘Open Science’) sets out which measures and activities form part of the data management and should be described (pages 47–52). It is advisable to follow its order, i.e. to begin with a description of the data types, move on to explain how it will be ensured that data is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR principles), and finally address the resources allocated to data management and archiving. However, this order is not mandatory. It is important, though, that you cover all the mentioned points in substance, insofar as they are relevant to your project - briefly in the application, and in detail in the DMP.

There is an MS Word template available for creating data management plans in Horizon Europe projects. It provides a chapter outline and guiding questions to help structure the content. However, you will notice some points where certain information relates to more than one chapter. In such cases, you do not need to repeat yourself. Instead, you should refer to the relevant sections where you already covered the topic (“see…”).

Your statements in the grant agreement form part of the funding contract and are therefore legally binding. A DMP is a deliverable, and a first version has to be submitted within the first six month of the funding period. Keep it up to date and include the current version in your periodical reports and in the final report.

Completeness and quality of the RDM chapter and the DMP will be considered during the evaluation of midterm reports and final reports. To our knowledge, there are even special reviewers who check whether a DMP is adequately concrete and complete and then report their verdict back to the respective project officer. In case of critical assessments, it is up to this officer if and how he or she requests improvements.

We currently do not believe that the practical implementation of the measures described in the plan is regularly verified on site. However, you should expect a closer examination on samples of everything that can be checked online (e.g. data publication in compliance with the FAIR principles). An extraordinary audit may also take place in case of complaints.