Biological Sciences Data Management and Sharing Plan Guidance for Proposals and Awards

As described in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), the two-page Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) is a required supplementary document for any proposal submission to the U.S. National Science Foundation that will be considered under the Intellectual Merit or Broader Impacts, or both, as appropriate.

Beyond the expectations set forth for DMSPs in the NSF PAPPG, below is some additional context and guidance specific to the research community of the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO). Additionally, please check individual funding opportunities for any unique requirements for DMSPs.

The BIO Directorate recognizes that different research communities may have their own data management practices and standards; that these norms will change over time; and, that lifecycles of usefulness will vary for different data types. As such, it is essential for scientific communities to guide needed standards development and to shape expectations for data management and sharing. While we anticipate variation in DMSPs across research communities, each DMSP should be appropriate for the data being generated and reflect the best practices and standards in the proposed area of research.

BIO ADDITIONAL GUIDANCE

DMSPs should be consistent with the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship.

In recognition of certain research security risks associated with bulk sensitive personal data, including personal health data and human genomic data, as outlined in Executive Order 14117, DMSPs should describe provisions taken to protect such data.

PIs may also consider developing best practices regarding the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics).

DMSPs should outline roles and responsibilities of all parties with respect to the management of data and describe contingency plans for the departure of key personnel from the project.

DMSPs are expected to include the use of recognized, accessible, community-accepted repositories (where they exist) that conform to appropriate national and international standards for such facilities. DMSPs that rely on self-publication on personal, or lab websites in lieu of available public repositories may be considered inadequate.

DMSPs of projects that involve collecting or generating specimens that require deposition or vouchering, and curation (e.g., organisms, parts of organisms, fossils [including trace fossils], microbial isolates, environmental samples, etc.) must include a description of how specimens and associated data will be permanently accessioned into, and maintained in, a community-accepted biological collection in ways that are consistent with community norms, best practices, and standards.

COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH DATA MANAGEMENT AND SHARING

Costs associated with the implementation of the DMSP for the duration of the award, including personnel costs, are allowable expenses. If applicable, these costs should be added to the respective budget sections and justified in the budget narrative.

POST-AWARD DATA MANAGEMENT AND SHARING

DMSP implementation is monitored by NSF Program Directors through the annual and final project reports where the Products section should be used to report progress made in the management and sharing of data, and research products (e.g., identifier or accession numbers for data sets, citations of relevant publications, conference proceedings, and other types of data sharing and dissemination).

The following information should be included in all project reporting (as applicable), along with any other specific activities described in the project's DMSP:

the data produced during the reporting period;

how the data were disseminated;

where the data generated by the project were deposited and being stored for long-term public access;

the standards that were used to make the data available to others, including data format and any metadata; and

unique, resolvable, and persistent identifiers (such as Digital Object Identifiers [DOIs]; Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), or similar) for each publicly released product referenced in the report.

Any changes from the original DMSP should be discussed with the managing Program Director and should be reported in the Changes/Problems section of the annual or final project report.

FUTURE PROPOSALS

Prior DMSP implementation will be considered during evaluation of subsequent NSF proposal submissions. Data management and sharing outcomes from previous or ongoing NSF-funded activities must be reported by the PI and Co-PIs under "Results from Prior NSF Support" and must include: "evidence of research products and their availability, including, but not limited to: data, publications, samples, physical collections, software, and models, as described in any Data Management and Sharing Plan." Where appropriate, this section must therefore include evidence of deposition of such research products in recognized, accessible, community-accepted repositories by listing such repositories and, if practical, metadata. All products that are specifically mentioned in the "Results from Prior NSF Support" section must be included in the References Cited section with unique, resolvable, and persistent identifiers (such as Digital Object Identifiers [DOIs]; Uniform Resource Locators [URLs], or similar).