At UCT, the drivers and principles for managing research data are emerging in response to a number of policies published by funders of research, which include:
ensuring the validation of research results
providing research opportunities in data reuse
enabling actionable and socially-beneficial science to address global research challenges.
The core mandates emerging from the policy are that UCT researchers and postgraduate students who receive public funding are required to create a Data Management Plan (DMP) outline how they will manage, curate and if appropriate publish their research data; and that research data should be stored on a trusted digital repository at the culmination of research. The policy further encourages open data publishing, while being cognisant that making data resulting from publicly-funded research open access requires consideration of the necessary limits on openness. The UCT RDM Policy will assist researchers in complying with legal requirements and emerging terms of funding and scholarly publishing regarding personal information and commercial considerations.
The RDM policy is informed by the FAIR open data principles (data should be 'Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable'), an international standard for Open Data and Open Science. To read more about the FAIR principles, consult the ANDS website.
The University of Cape Town's Research Data Management (RDM) Policy is available here.