What are funders' requirements?
Public research funding organizations are placing an increasing emphasis on research data management policies and practices, both within Canada and internationally.
The Canadian Federal government has made a commitment to Open Science in its Open Government 2016-2018 plan, which outlines steps to make the science that supports policy decisions more transparent and accessible to the general public.
Increasingly, funding agencies are requiring that prospective recipients will submit a plan for managing research data and that data will be shared following the conclusion of a research project.
Canadian grant agencies' requirements
On March 15, 2021, the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy was adopted and will be phased in over the next two years: "... the agencies believe that research data collected through the use of public funds should be responsibly and securely managed and be, where ethical, legal and commercial obligations allow, available for reuse by others."
- Institutional strategies: By March 1, 2023, research institutions subject to this requirement must post their RDM strategies and notify the agencies when they have done so.
- Data management plans: By spring 2022, the agencies will identify an initial set of funding opportunities that will be subject to the data management plan requirement. Before this, the agencies will pilot the requirement in targeted funding opportunities.
- Data deposit: After reviewing the institutional RDM strategies, and in line with the readiness of the Canadian research community, the agencies will phase in the deposit requirement.
For further information about the policy, see our page of Frequently Asked Questions.
Current policies:
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) requires that all "research data collected with the use of SSHRC funds must be preserved and made available for use by others within a reasonable period of time." SSHRC considers "a reasonable period" to be within two years of the completion of the research project for which the data was collected.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research similarly requires the deposit of non-sensitive data within 12 months of publication.
Projects funded by Genome Canada must share data and resources in a "timely fashion" with no restrictions, with appropriate exceptions.
Simon Fraser University:
Simon Fraser University is committed to making accessible and preserving the products of research with the broadest possible community, including other scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and the public at large. To this end, research data will be managed in accordance with the principles outlined in the draft SFU Research Data Management principles.
International funding agencies' requirements
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR)
Horizon 2020 (Research funding in the European Commission)
The Wellcome Trust (UK)
Journal publishers' requirements
Instructions for authors or author guidelines often specify data sharing policies of each publication. Examples include Nature, Springer Nature, PLOS, and Wiley. These requirements typically include making all supporting datasets openly available without restrictions when the article is published. A growing number of journal policies related to data and open science are being evaluated along specific Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines created by the Center for Open Science.