NIH Data Management

A NEW NIH Data Management & Sharing (DMS) Policy went into effect on January 25, 2023 for NIH awards (with the exception of Fellowships (F’s), Training grants (T’s), Career Development (K’s) and infrastructure grants).

Under the DMS policy, NIH intramural investigators will:

Prospectively plan for the managing and sharing of scientific data,
Submit a DMS plan,
Comply with the approved plan.

To enable compliance, NIH has provided guidance on writing Data Management and Sharing plans for applications due after January 25, 2023.

Data Management Plans should include:

Data types,
Related tools, software, and/or code,
Metadata standards,
Data preservation, access, and associated timelines,
Access, distribution, or reuse considerations,
Oversight of data management (roles and responsibilities), and
Planned research output details.

Data Management Plans will require listing at least one intended repository for publicly accessible data. Repositories should follow FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable.)

Discipline specific repositories are preferred, view the Registry of Research Data Repositories https://www.re3data.org/ to find a discipline specific repository.
Publishers often have contracts with specific repositories and will prefer adding data supporting articles to a preferred source.
In the absence of a discipline specific repository, generalist repositories exist. Individual project submissions to these repositories are possible.
Dryad
Dataverse
Figshare
Mendeley Data
Open Science Framework
Vivli

DMS plans will not be subject to reviewer scoring, although reviewers can offer comments on the appropriateness of budgeted costs. Instead, NIH staff will evaluate the plans and PIs can revise them during JIT, if needed. Any limitations on data sharing should be described in the plan. The applicant chooses the repository unless another repository is required per the funding announcement. Efforts to reduce administrative burden include allowing Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) plans to be included in the DMS Plan to avoid duplicate effort of data sharing policies.

Who's repsonsible to cover the costs?

NIH recognizes there may be additional costs to implement the DMS plan and have therefore identified allowable costs for grant applications submitted on or after January 25th, 2023. NIH has also developed a cost estimate tool to assist the researcher in forecasting costs for an application budget.

What Scientific Data Need to Be Shared?

Scientific data are defined as the recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as of sufficient quality to validate and replicate research findings, regardless of whether the data are used to support scholarly publications. Scientific data does not include laboratory notebooks, preliminary analyses, completed case report forms, drafts of scientific papers, plans for future research, peer reviews, communications with colleagues, or physical objects, such as laboratory specimens. See frequently asked questions for additional guidance on what must be shared. Examples of scientific data to be shared are provided here as Appendix 1.

There are justifiable reasons for limiting the sharing of data. These reasons should be described in the DMS plan. See frequently asked questions.

Data plans for research that is subject to the NIH Genomic Data Sharing policy will now be included as part of the DMS plans. Genomic data sharing considerations, such as where and when genomic data will be shared, will be addressed in the DMS plan.

For the development of DMS plans for your applications, we suggest using the DMPTool, which is a web-based DMP generation tool loaded with sponsor-specific templates. NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs) have been given flexibility in how they implement the policy based on specific needs, meaning researchers and applicants may need to be familiar with different ICO-specific plan requirements; therefore, using this tool may take the guesswork out of this process and provide some ease in meeting these requirements to be compliant with your applications. Information regarding which policies apply to your research can be found here.

The SUNY Office of Library and Information Services (OLIS) has provided additional information on their repositories and is providing a training in Albany. More information on OLIS services can be found on their website. OLIS will also be offering virtual information sessions for interested faculty and staff. Please bookmark their website and visit often for updates. OLIS will share a forthcoming calendar of webinars and events on Research Data Management.

Here is a sample DMPTool template for a NIH-GEN DMS Plan: https://grants.nih.gov/sites/default/files/DMS-Plan-blank-format-page.pdf

Additional resources:

Data Management

Sharing Scientific Data