STFC has updated its Scientific Data policy. STFC's Executive Board recently approved the introduction of an over-riding data policy to provide guidance to its staff and communities.
The policy consists of a set of general principles that cover the wide variety of scientific communities and existing practices that fall within STFC's remit. The key principle of the policy is that all funded activities are required to have a data management plan, which must be in line with recommended good practice. These individual plans will then have the added check of being subject to approval by the relevant STFC boards and panels.
Although this has not been a critical issue, a single standardised policy has clear advantages in a single organisation. The policy was drawn up by an internal technical working group set up in 2009 and is in line with current thinking as well as improving transparency for those working for and with STFC.
Research data are an increasingly important and expensive output of the scholarly research process, across all disciplines. They are an essential part of the evidence necessary to evaluate research results, and to reconstruct the events and processes leading to them. Their value increases as they are aggregated into collections and as they become more available for re-use to address new and challenging research questions. But we shall realise the value of data only if we move beyond research policies, practices and support systems developed in a different era. We need new approaches to managing and providing access to research data.
The framework is structured around five broad principles which provide a guide to the development of policy and practice for a range of key players: universities, research institutions, libraries and other information providers, publishers, and research funders as well as researchers themselves.
In seeking to develop the framework further, all parties need to work collaboratively and to ensure that it is sensitive to the needs of researchers and the different contexts in which they work. All parties must also take account of relevant technical and policy-making developments in the UK and overseas.
The project's overall aim was to contribute to new models, workflows and tools for academic data sharing within a complex and dynamic information environment which included increased emphasis on stewardship of institutional knowledge assets of all types; new technologies to enhance e-Research; new research council policies and mandates; and the growth of the Open Access / Open Data movement.
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