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I think that all universities -whether they are research intensive universities or...
predominantly teaching universities but with research distributed through them-...
I think they all need a policy about research data.
And that is partly because the funders themselves are asking the institutions...
to take responsibility for the data...
that are produced from...
the grants that they've funded. So the institution,...
not the principal investigator or the researcher, signs up to the grant that is accepted.
So, there is an institutional responsibility for the research.
And also because researchers a mobile, very successful researchers are very mobile,...
and so unless there is a long-term home...
for the data that they produce...
there's a risk that that data is lost as they transit from Europe to...
the States to Australia and back.
So, the research needs... the research data outputs need to reside there.
I think that there is an increasing recognition in the Higher Education world...
that research results that have been paid for by the public purse should...
be available to everyone, and I think the universities are the best placed to...
ensure that that happens,...
that they can ensure the confidentiality where necessary and...
appropriate use of the research outputs.
So, there is an institutional requirement...
to manage research data into the long-term. And actually if you look at
some of the areas of current interest like climate change, etcetera,...
the research data that are being used are hundreds of year old.
So, residing with the individual researcher, I think actually on those grounds is [you know]...
not realistic.
So, the institution needs to provide a place...
for the longevity of data,...
and its preservation, so that it's accessible into the future.
And the researcher and the institution need to work together, and so therefore, you need...
a research data management policy that specifies the responsibility of...
the institution and the responsibility of the researcher.
Because the researcher will devise the data collection from the beginning...
they will decide what data they want, they will capture those data,...
they are the only ones who know what they mean, and therefore the only ones...
who can write the metadata,...
write the intelligibility words around them,...
and then can hand on...
the finished, polished product...
that will be usable by others, to the institution for its long-term keeping.
And the Research Data Management Policy defines those...
different responsibilities, the responsibility of the institution, the responsibility of the researcher.
Not all researchers are funded by external bodies.
Many researchers in Social Sciences, especially in Arts and Humanities areas,...
actually are not funded...
in the Research Council and large charity sense,...
indeed they may not be funded at all by an external group,...
and so therefore, there are no terms and conditions for them, for their data...
applied from outside. And they are actually perhaps...
the least technologically able, will also need somewhere, a place into which...
those data are put.
I mean, The University of Edinburgh...
has a strong interest in openness of research outputs and research publications,...
and now research data, are part of our mind set.
And so therefore, we need it as a university, we need a way of...
setting standards for ourselves and for our PIs [Principal Investigators] about...
how we are going to handle research data.
And so we've been talking with other institutions who've got a common view,...
that you need a policy...
to guide your work, and so from the university point of view we decided that setting...
the policy first was the most urgent thing for us, and then we would work out...
implementation plans to follow suit. So we have recently passed through our...
committee structure and now been signed off by court a research data management policy...
for The University of Edinburgh.
I think it's the first, we are the first university in the UK to have one,...
but I don't think we'll be the first for very long,...
because I think all universities like us will establish a research data management policy...
for themselves in the very near future, and I think actually in reality...
they will all look very similar,...
because in many respects they are common sense words that we're using about...
how to manage research data now and into the future.