NIH Data Management Policy and Sharing Policy

Previously, the NIH only required grants with $500,000 per year or more in direct costs to provide a brief explanation of how and when data resulting from the grant would be shared.

The 2023 NIH policy is entirely new. Beginning January 25, 2023, ALL grant applications or renewals that generate

Scientific Data must include a robust and detailed plan for managing and sharing data during the entire funded period. This includes information on data storage, access policies/procedures, preservation, metadata standards, distribution approaches, and more. You must provide this information in a data management and sharing plan (DMSP). The DMSP is similar to what other funders call a data management plan (DMP).

The DMSP will be assessed by NIH Program Staff (though peer reviewers will be able to comment on the proposed data management budget). The Institute, Center, or Office (ICO)-approved plan becomes a Term and Condition of the Notice of Award.

Whether you're writing a data management plan or applying a new data management strategy to an existing project, contact us with questions or to set up a data consultation session.

Cline Librarians are here to help!

A Data Management & Sharing Plan (DMSP) must be submitted as part of the funding application for all new and competing proposals/renewals that generate Scientific Data for January 25, 2023, and subsequent receipt dates. The term Scientific Data is defined in the policy as "The recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as of sufficient quality to validate and replicate research findings, regardless of whether the data are used to support scholarly publications. Scientific data do not include laboratory notebooks, preliminary analyses, completed case report forms, drafts of scientific papers, plans for future research, peer reviews, communications with colleagues, or physical objects, such as laboratory specimens."

High-level first steps

1. Determine whether the NIH policy applies to you. If you are unsure whether NIH's new policy will apply to your research, check NIH's page about Research Covered Under the Data Management & Sharing Policy. Remember, all NIH-funded or partially funded research generating Scientific Data will be subject to this policy beginning on January 25, 2023.
2. Figure out your personal timeline. If you have an active NIH award going up for renewal with a receipt date of January 2023, or if you are planning to submit an NIH proposal this year, then developing a DMSP should be a high priority, especially if you are working with external collaborators as it may take time to set up appropriate data procedures/agreements. 
3. Read through this website to familiarize yourself with the changes and with the policy itself (including the supplements)
4. Familiarize yourself with the FAIR principles (Wilkinson et. al, 2016). The FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data principles are the guiding principles the NIH has used in creating the new policy. 
5. Assess your project and data management practices relative to the policy (see the NIH-provided supplements below), especially around documenting existing practices and developing new ones to address the increased emphasis on data sharing and administrative oversight.

IRB may ask for the information in your DMSP. Therefore, drafting your DMSP before seeking IRB approval is strongly recommended.

If you plan to generate scientific data, you must submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) to the funding NIH ICO as part of the Budget Justification section of your application for extramural awards. 

Your plan should be two pages or fewer and must include:

• Data Type

• Related Tools, Software and/or Code

• Standards

• Data Preservation, Access, and Associated Timelines

• Access, Distribution, or Reuse Considerations

• Oversight of Data Management and Sharing.

To draft the plan itself, we recommend the DMPTool using the NIH 2023 template. Additional guidance for completing each section of the template will be added to the DMPTool on a rolling basis. 

If you are including institutional services and tools in the DMSP, be sure to budget for any associated costs. See the following section for what kinds of services and tools are available. 

Any costs related to complying with the policy must be paid for up-front during the performance period. For example, costs for long-term data preservation must be budgeted for in the proposal and paid before the end of the grant. You may find the NIHM Data Archive (NDA) cost estimation worksheet useful.

• Supplemental Information: Elements of an NIH Data Management and Sharing Plan (2023)

  Information to help researchers choose data repositories suitable for the preservation and sharing of data

• NIH Data Management Plan Examples

  Use these funded examples to tailor your own data management plan.

• Ten simple rules for maximizing the recommendations of the NIH data management and sharing plan

  This article provides ten critical recommendations for creating a data management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) that is both maximally compliant and effective for the January 2023 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Policy for Data Management and Sharing.