Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

Policy Specifics

Data Plan

A Technical Plan is required “for all applications where digital outputs or digital technologies are an essential part to the planned research outcomes. A digital output or digital technology is defined as an activity which involves the creation, gathering, collecting and/or processing of digital information.”

Additional Guidance

Guidance on the length and coverage of the Technical Plan is given in section 4.2.9.5 of the Research Funding Guide.

Data Sharing / Access

“You should provide a brief and clear description of the digital output or digital technology being proposed, considering the following aspects: purpose, source data, content, functionality, use and its relationship to the research questions. You should identify the type of access envisaged, if applicable, such as 'freely available online'.”

Time Limits for Deposit and Retention

“Grant Holders in all areas must make any significant electronic resources or datasets created as a result of research funded by the Council available in an accessible and appropriate depository for at least three years after the end of their grant. The choice of depository should be appropriate to the nature of the project and accessible to the targeted audiences for the material produced.” There is no stipulation on how quickly data should be deposited.

Data Centre / Data Archive

The AHRC does not operate a data centre. Choice of data depository is left to the grant holder.

Costs

“AHRC awards cannot cover any direct costs relating to the expenditure occurring after the end date of the grant, though they can cover appropriate costs of preparation and ingest of digital outputs that are incurred within the funding period. It is important therefore to consider and outline how the costs incurred after the end of the grant will be funded.”

Monitoring

Award holders are “required to submit outputs, outcomes and impacts linked to your award through the Researchfish system.” AHRC notes that “the monitoring of existing or past awards may be taken into account in the assessment of future applications, particularly if this monitoring is found to be less than satisfactory.”

Related Policies

In common with the other RCUK councils, the AHRC policy on data is intended to be read and interpreted in conjunction with the RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/datapolicy/) and the Concordat on Open Research Data (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/documents/concordatonopenresearchdata-pdf/) The AHRC also has an Open Access policy (http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/about/policies/openaccess/) , in line with RCUK. Publications should be made available as rapidly and effectively as possible via deposit in an appropriate repository at or around the time of publication. This is a requirement for the Research Excellence Framework (REF).