You only have to look at recent statements from Research Councils UK, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and others to know that researchers are under increasing pressure to create and manage their data in an appropriate and, ideally, open way.

The University of Northampton was one of the earliest universities to develop a research data policy.  Our policy is straightforward.  It recognises that good research is underpinned by good research data management and expects researchers to follow RCUK recommendations for achieving this.  On a practical level it encourages each researcher to produce a data management plan at an early stage of their research lifecycle and to deposit their data in a data repository on the completion of the project.

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