Research360 Project Underway

The joint University of Bath- and UKOLN-based Research360 Project is now fully up and running.

Research360 is one of a number of projects being funded through the JISC Managing Research Data Programme. It is an 18-month long institutional project designed to pilot policies, infrastructure and training resources to provide high-quality support for research, ensuring that the University and its partners get the best possible value from data generated by research.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a key funder of research at the University. In April 2011, the EPSRC published its Policy Framework on Research Data, identifying nine expectations of organisations in receipt of EPSRC funding. Unlike other funding bodies, who place responsibility for managing research data on individual researchers, the EPSRC put the onus on the institution. They mandated that EPSRC-funded research data should be as freely and openly available as possible and that institutions must have in place the infrastructure, policy and support necessary for researchers share their data. Institutions have been given until May 2012 to identify what they need to do in order to meet these expectations and must be fully compliant by May 2015. Developing the technical and human infrastructure to enable the University of Bath to meet the EPSRC expectations is a major element of the Research360 Project.

The project concentrates in particular on data generated during collaborative research with industry. It will seek to identify how data generated through such collaborations is currently organised, accessed, curated and preserved and any associated difficulties. From this, it should be possible to determine what can be done to overcome these problems in the future, enabling the production of guidance documents advocating best practice in managing academic-industry data.

Initially it will apply the research lifecycle model to the Faculties of Science and Engineering. Project outputs will ultimately be implemented across the institution. A key output of Research360 will be the publication of guidance documents and exemplar case studies that will assist other HEIs undertaking similar processes. Alongside this, members of the project team are linking up with related projects running at other institutions to share their experiences.

The project is also developing training in research data management. This will take the form of a virtual learning module and some face-to-face training. A pilot training session for post-graduate students has already taken place, where a number of alternative data management plans were trialled. The project will be building on this to develop an institutional template for the DMP Online tool and to generate guidelines in data management planning designed specifically for postgraduates based in Doctoral Training Centres.

The project team draws on experience from across the University, including representatives from the Vice-Chancellor’s Office, RDSO, the Library, BUCS, UKOLN, DCC and the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies.

For more information and regular updates, please visit the Research360 project blog, which is available from the Research360 Project pages on the UKOLN Web site. Alternatively, please contact Catherine Pink at UKOLN or visit the University of Bath’s Managing Research Data Web site.