The world’s largest public funder of biomedical research will impose broader, deeper, more detailed data management rule on 25 January
Biochemists and other researchers who apply for funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) will have to include comprehensive data management and sharing plans in grants from 25 January. These will be formal strategies for managing, preserving and sharing scientific data, as well as the accompanying metadata.
The new rule, which is generating some concern within the research community, replaces the NIH’s existing data sharing policy that has been around since 2003, and applies to only those seeking at least $500,000 (£419,200) in direct costs from the agency in any given year. The original regulation required researchers to submit a plan that describes how they will share the underlying data, or if they cannot share it then why not.