Data management plans

A data management plan describes how you will collect, organise, analyse, preserve, and share your research data. 

What is research data?   

You are likely to generate a significant amount of data during your research degree. 
This might include:   

  • Photographs, audio, video recordings and films   
  • Musical performances 
  • Sketches 
  • Models, algorithms and scripts   
  • Numerical data  
  • Fieldnotes, questionnaires and interview transcripts   
  • Specimens and samples   

Creating a data management plan

It is a University requirement that you have a data management plan for your research project by the time you reach transfer. This plan should be reviewed and updated as your research progresses. You will be asked to upload this each year as part of your Annual progress reviews. 

This will help you to identify and describe your data, and ensure that you are handling, storing and sharing the data appropriately.   

You can access a data management plan template to help you get started. 

Learn about the University’s research data management expectations in the University of Leeds research data management policy.  

Assessing whether your data is sensitive

Sensitive data must be handled and stored carefully. It is important that you know about the University’s guidance on data protection and handling personal and research data. Please discuss this with your supervisors. 

Read more about the protection of sensitive information in the University’s information protection policy.   

Find out more about safeguarding data on the Library website.

Storing your data appropriately

Make sure you know what University storage is available to you, think about the most appropriate place to store your data, and consider whether encryption is needed.  

Check information from IT Services about keeping data safe, including what to consider when working on a laptop or when generating data outside the University.   

Remember you may need to access data for future work and publications. You should consider this when making your data management plan. Your access to your university IT account will stop 90 days after you are on the pass list , so if you or someone else will need access to data after this point you should plan for this. 

Sharing your data

Many research funders encourage data sharing beyond the original project where appropriate. You should address data sharing both during and after your research in your data management plan.   

It is important that your consent wording, any participant information, and any agreements with project partners are consistent with how you plan to use the data.  

The University’s Research Data Leeds repository can be used to share open research data generated by Leeds researchers. The Library also manages a repository service for controlled access datasets called RADAR.  

For information on how to use data repositories, please see the Library website

If you need advice on sharing material related to your thesis, for example for a conference presentation, an exhibition, or a journal article, you can contact the Research Data team in the Library on researchdataenquiries@leeds.ac.uk

Research data management training   

The Library runs two data management training courses: 

  • Research data management essentials 
  • Safeguarding confidential, sensitive and restricted data 

See the Library workshops for researchers page for more details. 

Find further guidance on how to organise and manage your research data and write your data management plan on the Library website. 

Studies