Good enough practices in data management and how to translate these in data management plans (DMPs)

This document provides some generic guidelines for the preparation of a data management plan (DMP) and gives guidance for research data management (RDM). These guidelines have been drafted as an output of the Belgian SAFRED project. The goal of the Belspo funded BRAIN project SAFRED (Saving Freshwater Biodiversity Research Data) was to achieve systematic recovery and publication of data generated in freshwater research. SAFRED ran from the end of 2015 until september 2018 and was collaborative project  between KULeuven, UGent, ULg, INBO, UNamur, BBPf, BOKU and RBINSto publish Belgian freshwater biodiversity data. The mobilised data were published online at GBIF with the assistance of the Belgian Biodiversity Platform and the Freshwater Information Platform. 

As many of the problems of retrieving old research data could have been avoided by good data management, these guidelines for research data management and DMP writing have been written in order to avoid similar problems in future projects and to stimulate project partners to improve their day-to-day data management practices. As the purpose of this project was to recover freshwater biodiversity data, examples are given for biodiversity data, but most of the guidelines are easily applicable for other fields of research as well.