From the 1 May 2015 the EPSRC has issued new guidance to its funded researchers on the availability and accessibility to research data. In essence these requirements mean that Principle investigators (PIs) need to ensure that EPSRC funded research data is freely/openly available with as few restrictions as possible.

What do researchers need to do?

There are four key things researchers need to do to ensure that they comply with the new EPSRC guidelines:

1. Data Management Plan (DMP): Although not formal part of the application, EPSRC expect you to have a DMP in place. Consider in your plan what data you would wish to share with others, and how you will do so. There is an EPSRC Data Management Template in DMPonline a web-based tool for creating data management plans
2. Publication of your data: Expectations on storage and preservation can in general be met by depositing your data that underpins your publication in a suitable subject, national or journal data repository, or otherwise in the University’s system. If you are depositing data outside of the University we still need to know where it is so please let us know at researchdata at warwick dot ac dot uk To find out more about suitable data repositories and whether they meet EPSRC requirements please contact us on the same email address and we can discuss your needs.
3. Acknowledgement of data in publications: Ensure published research with a publication date of 1st of May 2015 or after has a statement describing how to access supporting data. You need to include a DOI or another persistent identifier in your publication that points to the data or a metadata record explaining how data can be accessed or why it cannot be shared. This can be done via an external data repository or WRAP. Email us if you have any questions: researchdata at warwick dot ac dot uk
4. Costs of research data management: If there are potential costs in storing, curating and/or managing your research data, please include these costs in your grant application. This includes costs of anonymisation of your data if necessary. However these costs must be incurred within the lifetime of your project.

If you have any questions please contact us at researchdata at warwick dot ac dot uk for further support.