Compilation of Recommendations

Details

Short Title

Rec. 18: Cost data management

Source Documnent

Turning FAIR into reality: Final report and action plan from the European Commission expert group on FAIR data

Source Document Link

http://dx.doi.org/10.2777/1524

Publishing Organisation

European Commision

Date of Publication

2018-11-26

Topic

Sustainability/ funding/ business-model

Addressed Stakeholders

research funders, institutions, data stewards, research community, data stewards

Keywords

cost model, funding

Text

Research funders should require data management costs and other relevant costs to be considered and included in grant applications where relevant. To support this, detailed guidelines and worked examples of eligible costs for FAIR data should be provided. Action 18.1: Questions about the costs of data management, curation and publication should be included in all DMP templates. Information from existing and completed projects should be used to retrospectively identify costs and develop examples and guidelines based on these. Funders, institutions and data services should collaborate on retrospective analysis, including the cost of long-term curation. Action 18.2: Research institutions and research projects need to take data management seriously and provide sufficient resources to implement the actions required in DMPs, while ensuring that financial resources are written into proposals as eligible costs. Action 18.3: Guidelines should be provided for researchers and reviewers to raise awareness of eligible costs and reinforce the view that data management, long term curation and data publication should be included in project proposals. Funders should collaborate to enhance guidance. Action 18.4: Funders should trial different mechanisms for supporting the costs of FAIR data management and stewardship, such as having a separate dedicated budget in the grant scheme. Apportioning specific costs for FAIR data should help to encourage researchers to budget for these and not fear their proposals will be uncompetitive.