Create a data management plan

Prepare a data management plan at the start of your research project to:

• support grant applications and comply with funder requirements
• improve the quality of your research and data and reduce the risk of data loss
• avoid ethics and privacy breaches
• comply with legislation, policies and discipline best practice.

Read more about Data Management Plans, what your plan should cover and browse examples from the Australian Research Data Commons.

Check data requirements for grant applications

Australian and international funding agencies have requirements for research data management. You will need to address how you will:

• plan your research data management
• make users aware of ethical considerations
• store and secure your project's data
• disseminate and share your project's data
• make your project's data available for reuse.

Australian funding agencies

• Australian Research Council (ARC) data management requirement
• National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Funding Agreement
• Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research 2018

FAIR data

Visit our Open data page to learn more about Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable data principles that may apply to your grant application.

Data retention

UQ researchers are required to retain their research data in a durable, index and retrievable form.

Refer to funders, archive or record keeping Acts and UQ Policy for retention periods, what data should be retained and what data should be permanently destroyed:

• UQ Research Data Management Policy
• Information Management Policy and Keeping Records at UQ Procedure
• Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
• Queensland Government University Sector Retention and Disposal Schedule.

Publishing in a data journal

You can consider publishing your project's data in a data journal, where you publish a dataset rather than an extensive analysis of the data. 

Review the data journal's requirements for submission, review and publication and structure your data in a way that supports its eventual publication.