The European Commission is running a flexible pilot under Horizon 2020 called the Open Research Data Pilot (ORD pilot). The ORD pilot aims to improve and maximise access to and re-use of research data generated by Horizon 2020 projects and takes into account the need to balance openness and protection of scientific information, commercialization and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), privacy concerns, security, as well as data management and preservation questions.
A data management plan (DMP) is required for all projects participating in the extended ORD pilot and describes the data management life cycle for the data to be collected, processed and/or generated by a Horizon 2020 project.
To help Horizon 2020 beneficiaries make their research data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), the Commission has designed a Horizon 2020 FAIR DMP template which provided in Annex I of their new guidelines on FAIR Data Management in Horizon 2020.
FAIR principles can and should be adopted by research groups outside the ORD pilot in developing DMPs for their projects. A FAIR DMP should include information on:
- the handling of research data during and after the end of the project
- what data will be collected, processed and/or generated
- which methodology and standards will be applied
- whether data will be shared/made open access and
- how data will be curated and preserved (including after the end of the project).
[SOURCE: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/hi/oa_pilot/h2020-hi-oa-data-mgt_en.pdf]
[ARTICLE BY Rabelani Mutondwa]
