Sustainable Research Data Management in practice

A professional approach to the management of research data is essential to ensure the quality, traceability and reusability of scientific knowledge. Research funders are also increasingly demanding professional and transparent research data management. Many funding agencies place great emphasis on the creation of data management plans that provide detailed information on how research data will be handled. The promotion of an open and transparent scientific culture aims to ensure that research data are available as a valuable resource for the scientific community. Research data include all data created, developed or evaluated during a research process, or based on it. Publications are not included in the definition of research data. Research data can take many forms, from raw data and measurement results to digital content such as texts or images. Consideration of the data lifecycle (in German only) is an essential component of effective data management.

The data lifecycle consists of different phases, ranging from data generation, storage, processing and analysis through to archiving and publication. Each phase requires specific research data management to ensure the integrity and availability of the research data. This is a cycle that the data go through. At any point in time the cycle can be entered, whereby at the very beginning of your own project, to simplify entry, the ‚planning & collection‘ is regarded as starting point. By way of an introduction to the practical management of research data, the key issues based on the data lifecycle are discussed below.