Research Data Management: Policies

Our main policy for research data is here: 

University of Southampton Research Data Management Policy [PDF]

The following guidance supports the policy and can be quoted in DMPs:

• Data Sharing Guidance - https://library.soton.ac.uk/researchdata/access
• Retention - https://library.soton.ac.uk/researchdata/retention
• Destruction - https://library.soton.ac.uk/researchdata/destruction

Other University policies related to data sharing:

• Data Protection Policy
• Data Sharing Policy
• Ethics Policy 
  • Human Participant Policy
  • Ethics policy on cultural heritage
  • Policy for Involving Animals in Research and Education
  • ERGO (Ethics and Research Governance Online)
• Code of Conduct for Research
• Procedures for Investigating Cases of Alleged Misconduct in Research
• Intellectual Property Regulations
• Freedom of Information 

The DCC has pages summarising individual funder policies:

UKRI funders

• Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
• Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Medical Research Council (MRC)
• Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)

Non-UKRI funders

• Cancer Research UK (CRUK)
• European Commission (EC)
• The Wellcome Trust

 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) expects research data arising from its funding to be made as open as possible and as restricted as necessary.  Although each Council has developed their own specific policies and requirements to take account of the disciplines involved, there is an expectation that Researchers will:

• Plan for their data collection, often through the submission of a initial data management plan with their proposal.
• Manage their data throughout the project, keeping the necessary metadata and documentation, and establishing good data handling procedures.
• Deposit their research data in a suitable repository and where possible make at least the record and metadata discoverable.
• Share the data at the appropriate time, subject to restrictions required relating to confidential, commercial, sensitive or personal data.
• Write a Data Access statement: Publications should include a statement on the availability or restrictions to access for the data (data access statement) as well as the acknowledgement of funding and grant details.
  • All UKRI funded research should have a data statement and reference the grant number 
  • This was reiterated by both the EPSRC (Research Data Expectation 2, May 2015) and the ESRC (Principle 3 of their Research Data Policy, March 2015)
  • Other funders have similar requirements.

In 2016 HEFCE, RCUK, Wellcome and Universities UK launched their Concordat on Open Research Data [pdf].

The Sorbonne Declaration on Research Data Rights was issued following the meeting of global research-intensive university groups at the Sorbonne in Paris: Russell Group (UK), LERU (League of European Universities), Association of American Universities, Group of 8 (Australia) , ARUA (African Research Universities Alliance), German U15, U15 (Canadian Research Universities), RU11 (Japan), CURIF (France).

Email us on: researchdata@soton.ac.uk

Who's Who in the Research Engagement Team

We can register a DOI for your dataset through DataCite - this gives a persistent link and can make it easier to cite.

For more details see our DOI for data page.

Note:  There are additional steps for depositing data at the end of a project.  Please contact ResearchData@soton.ac.uk for further guidance.

Return to

  Research Support