Your role: Policy maker

Introduction

As a policy maker, you are responsible for the development of a strategic data management framework and the coordination and implementation of research data management guidelines and practices.

It is essential that you have knowledge of local, national and international data-related procedures and regulations. General data concepts have to be translated into practical guidelines for organisations and collaborative projects.

Close collaboration with policy-related roles such as directors, project coordinators and funders is vital for this role.

Data management responsibilities

As a policy maker you are coordinating and aligning efforts on the quality, security and management of institutional or collaborative project data.

In your role of policy maker, you may need to:

• Advise, develop and monitor a RDM policy, institutionally or nationally;
• Ensure compliance of the RDM policy to codes of conduct and regulations, including ethical and legal compliance;
• Align the RDM policy to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles and the principles of Open Science;
• Identify the requirements of adequate data-infrastructure for RDM to comply with the institute’s RDM policy and alignment to (inter)national data-infrastructure and tools;
• Determine the adequate level of knowledge and skills on RDM;
• Maintain a network of aligned RDM expertise inside and outside the organisation or the collaborative project.

Data management guidance

RDMkit pages

• The Compliance page helps comply with the institution policy, including legal and ethical aspects.
• The National resources pages point to country-specific information resources such as local funding agencies and research councils, and information on local policies for open science, national regulations on data ethics, and domain-specific infrastructures and tools.
• Data protection helps to make research data compliant to GDPR.
• Data sensitivity helps to identify sensitivity of different research data types.
• Licensing gives advice on how to assign a licence to research data.
• Data management plan guides through writing a data management plan.
• Project data management coordination gives support in coordination and organisation of RDM in collaborative projects.

Other resources

• FAIR guiding principles
• Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management

More information

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National resources

Contributors