Planning a Project

There are lots of decisions to make before you start to create your data. Making these choices early on in your project can save you time and effort later, and your decisions will affect how you can use, share and publish your data.

Many funders now expect you to show you've engaged in data planning. You can do this by writing a data management plan, which is a document describing how your data will be handled both during a research project and after the project has ended.

Data management plans
If you are applying for research funding you may be required to submit a data management plan as part of your grant application. The University's Research Data Policy expects data management plans to be written for all new research projects, irrespective of whether submission of such plans is required when applying for research funding.
There are a number of templates and tools available to help you write your data management plan. You can also ask for your data management plan to be reviewed before it's finalised. A review can ensure that your plans are suitable for the type of data you'll be creating and check that you'll comply with policies and legislation relevant to your project.
Other common names for a Data Management Plan include:
- Data Management and Sharing Plan
- Access and Data Management Plan
- Statement on Data Sharing
- Data Access Plan
- Technical Plan
- DMP
Throughout these web pages, we use the term "Data Management Plan" to cover all of these and similar documents.
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Data security questionnaires

A number of funding bodies require that data security questionnaires are completed for the projects that they fund. The IT Security Manager can advise on technical aspects of data security for these questionnaires.

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Planning a Project

Data management plans

Data security questionnaires

In this Section

Data Management Planning

Funder Expectations

In this section

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