Sponsor Data Sharing Requirements

As I've discussed in past blogs, major federal funding agencies are demanding that applicants incorporate data management plans into their proposals. But there is much concern among researchers around the expectations for data sharing in these plans.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have addressed and clarified applicant expectations to some extent. Even if you aren't interested in applying to the NIH or NSF, it's worth watching how they are developing requirements, as other federal and non-federal agencies will likely follow suit. The points below outline some of the general positions these agencies are adopting:

Program-Directed Policies
Not surprisingly, data and best practices for data sharing is really discipline-specific. Best practices around privacy, sharing, access, and preservation vary wildly by field. Therefore, when you go to look at the general FAQs at the NIH or NSF, many of the responses are, to paraphrase, "it depends." The NSF repeatedly answer these data questions saying that many of the practices will be dictated by one's "community of interest." For these agencies, this basically means that reviewers within a directorate or study section will assess whether a proposal's data management plan meet the standards of their research community.

Addressing sharing and preserving
After the recent reports describing how few research projects could be reproduced, based on the data and methods that remained, the NIH and NSF are demanding more rigorous data management practices. This is partly to resolve the reproduction dilemma, but it is also so that agencies can get more bang for their buck. If new researchers can access the data from past funded projects, they can use it to produce even more research and analysis. This can mean more research for less money. With that said, agencies are asking PI's to share as quickly as is reasonable. The NIH asks for PI's to share data as soon as their publications have been accepted. They also want the data that they funded to produce to be kept in good shape for others.


Talk to POs
I probably could make this a heading in almost every blog I write, but it fits here too! Data and data sharing are complex and the questions surrounding data are often very specific. So, who better to counsel you on how to address these complexities than your friendly neighborhood Program Officer! However, as with all PO conversations, make sure you do your homework and understand your agency's data policies and requirements before reaching out to your PO.

In ending, if you start to hyperventilate when considering all the new requirements being asked of you by funders around data, remember, they're still working it out too, so work things out together!

Resources
NSF Data Management FAQs 
NIH Data Sharing FAQs