Data in the research process: a funder's perspective – Mark Thorley, National Environment Research C

Data in the Research Process
A funder’s perspective

Mark Thorley,
Natural Environment Research Council
mrt@nerc.ac.uk

© NERC/M.Thorley, 2012

Research Councils UK

€4B

Overview
• Why do Research Councils value ‘data’?
• Data policies and their implementation.
• The future…...


What do we mean by ‘Data’?
• NERC defines environmental data as individual
items or records (both digital and analogue)
usually obtained by measurement, observation
or modelling of the natural world and the impact
of humans upon it. This includes data generated
through complex systems, such as information
retrieval algorithms, data assimilation techniques
and the application of models.
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy2011.asp


Why Value Data?
• Integral part of the research record.
Access to the underlying data helps to support the
robustness, integrity and transparency of the research
record.

• Reuse and repurposing – aka sharing.
Enabling others to do new things with the data –
and not just other researchers.


Open Data &
transparency


Instruments to Achieve Aims
• Policy:
– If you take our money we expect you to do
‘stuff’ related to data.

• Funding:
– We will fund you to deliver ‘stuff’ related to
data.

• Infrastructure:
– We will provide and/or support a data
infrastructure.

Data Policy
• Data generated through Research Council
funded research should generally be
accessible for reuse and repurposing (aka
data sharing) – though protections and
constraints are in place.


http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Pages/DataPolicy.aspx

Research Integrity
• Proposed RCUK Policy on Access to
Research Outputs:
Research papers … must include … a statement
on how the underlying research materials - such
as data, samples or models - can be accessed.
http://www.openscholarship.org/jcms/c_7297/newstronger-uk-research-councilspolicy-on-open-access

Research
Conduct

http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/Publications/researchers/Pages/grc.aspx


Unacceptable conduct includes ….
Mismanagement or inadequate preservation of data and/or primary
materials, including failure to:
….
• make

relevant primary data and research evidence
accessible to others for reasonable periods after the
completion of the research: data should normally be
preserved and accessible for ten years, but for projects
of clinical or major social, environmental or heritage
importance, for 20 years or longer;
• manage data according to the research funder’s data policy and all relevant
legislation;
• wherever possible, deposit data permanently within a national collection.
Responsibility for proper management and preservation of data and
Primary materials is shared between the researcher and the
research organisation.


EPSRC Policy Framework
on Research Data
This policy framework sets out EPSRC’s expectations concerning the
management and provision of access to EPSRC-funded research data.
EPSRC recognises that a range of institutional policies and practices can
satisfy these expectations, and encourages research organisations to develop
specific approaches which, while aligned with EPSRC’s expectations,
are appropriate to their own structures and cultures.
The expectations arise from seven core principles which align with the
core RCUK principles on data sharing. Two of the principles are of particular
importance: firstly, that publicly funded research data should generally be made
as widely and freely available as possible in a timely and responsible
manner; and, secondly, that the research process should not be
damaged by the inappropriate release of such data.
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/about/standards/researchdata/Pages/default.aspx

NERC Data Policy
NERC has a policy on data in order to:
• Ensure the continuing availability of environmental data of long-term
value for research, teaching, and for wider exploitation for the public
good, by individuals, government, business and other organisations.
• Support the integrity, transparency and openness of the research it
supports.
• Help in the formal publication of data sets, as well as enabling the
tracking of their usage to be tracked through citation and data
licences.
• Meet relevant legislation and government guidance on the
management and distribution of environmental information.


NERC - Key Principles
• The environmental data produced by the activities funded by NERC
are considered a public good and they will be made openly available
for others to use. NERC is committed to supporting long-term
environmental data management to enable continuing access to
these data.
• NERC will supply the environmental data it holds for free, apart from
a few special cases as detailed in the policy.
• NERC requires that all environmental data of long-term value
generated through NERC-funded activities must be submitted to
NERC for long-term management and dissemination.


Policy Differences
• Disciplinary:
– For example how ‘open’ data can be.

• Responsibility:
– The individual or the institution.

• Infrastructure:
– Centrally funded provision vs ‘grant’ funded.


Implementation - Funding
• Differentiate between within project and
post project data management.
• Within project:
– Include appropriate resources within the grant
application.

• Post project:
– Varies with research funder, depending on
infrastructure provided.


Implementation - Infrastructure
• EPSRC: Responsibility of the research
organisation.
– Research organisations will ensure adequate
resources are provided to support the curation of
publicly-funded research data; these resources will be
allocated from within their existing public funding
streams, whether received from Research Councils
as direct or indirect support for specific projects or
from higher education Funding Councils as block
grants.


NERC

Provision of long-term
data management
infrastructure via 7 NERC
Environmental Data Centres.

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/

Implementation – ‘Policy’
‘Policy as a Stick’
approach.
Give me a policy
lever I can hit
someone with!


NERC – PiP
• Outline & Full Data Management Plans.
• Data Management Plan:
– The ‘contract’ between the PI and the Data
Centre.
– Key data management activities – who / what
/ where / when.
– Identifies data sets of long-term value for
deposit with the data centre.
– Data Value Checklist.

And what of the future …..?
•
•
•
•

CODATA – ‘Agenda for data’.
Clarify role of repositories vs data centres.
Data publication.
Role of publishers / ‘Rich’ publications.


Data Publishing
• Helping to motivate researchers to ‘do’ data.
• What is data publishing?
– Issue of a DOI to a data set held in a recognised
repository.
– Formal publication via a ‘Data Paper’.

• Publishing implies: Permanence, Fixity,
Reusability, Quality and Accessibility.
• Publishing provides for citation, enabling
recognition of effort.
• If published, must be out there for others
to use with minimum restriction.

RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy
•
•
•
•
•

•

Publicly funded research data … should be made openly available with as
few restrictions as possible in a timely and responsible manner that does
not harm intellectual property.
…Data with acknowledged long-term value should be preserved and remain
accessible and usable for future research.
… Published results should always include information on how to access
the supporting data.
RCUK recognises that there are legal, ethical and commercial constraints
on release of research data. … the research process [must] not [be]
damaged by inappropriate release of data.
To ensure that research teams get appropriate recognition for the effort
involved in collecting and analysing data, [researchers] may be entitled to a
limited period of privileged use of the data they have collected to enable
them to publish the results of their research.
In order to recognise the intellectual contributions of researchers who
generate, preserve and share key research datasets, all users of research
data should acknowledge the sources of their data …


Data in the research process: a funder's perspective – Mark Thorley, National Environment Research C

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Data in the research process: a funder's perspective – Mark Thorley, National Environment Research C