From Administrative Burden to Research Excellence: Getting Researchers to Take Data Management Seriously

Driven in part by the open access movement, recent years have seen the expansion of initiatives that aim to promote data sharing, with increasing awareness among stakeholders of the importance of making data publicly available. Consequently, many funders have implemented formal data management plans as part of the proposal process, while data repositories and libraries have developed services, guidelines and trainings to help researchers fulfill funders' requirements and apply good data management practices so that data can be shared. However, these same parties sometimes neglect the fact that many researchers do not take data management seriously, and perceive it and treat it at best as a form of administrative burden, and at worst as an obstacle to doing research. We will call for the repositioning of data management to the heart of the research process, irrespective of data sharing. Researchers should first and foremost see the value of good data management for their own research, as a way to achieve research excellence. We will share some reflections as to how this could be achieved by reconsidering the roles of funding agencies, data repositories, and librarians in encouraging and supporting good data management practices, beyond the goal of data sharing.