Data management plan (DMP)

A data management plan describes how research data are to be handled. The following questions should be answered before the project even begins:

• What data will be collected, and how?
• Do the data meet the threshold of originality? Who holds the copyright?
• What other intellectual property rights are involved?
• Who decides on access options? What read and management rights are to be made available?
• How is data processing documented?
• What metadata will be collected and stored, and how?
• How is data protection handled?
• Where will the data be published after the project concludes?
• In what format will they be stored and made reusable?

Answers and policies regarding these and other questions relevant to the research project should be documented in a data management plan — not least because the planning horizon extends well beyond the end of the project, given the minimum ten-year period of storage.