Data Management Plan Erc Template

Standard Operating Procedure: ERC Data Management Plan (DMP) Implementation

1. Executive Summary & Purpose

This SOP defines the institutional standard for developing, auditing, and maintaining a Data Management Plan (DMP) compliant with European Research Council (ERC) requirements. The purpose is to ensure all ERC-funded research adheres to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles, ensuring long-term data integrity, security, and open access compliance.

2. Scope & Prerequisites

• Scope: Applies to all Principal Investigators (PIs), Data Stewards, and research staff operating under ERC grant agreements.
• Required Tools: DMPonline or Argus (current template provider), Institutional Repository API, metadata schema validator (e.g., DataCite).
• Prerequisites: Completed Grant Agreement (GA), Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) if dealing with PII, and secure server access permissions.

3. Roles & Responsibilities (RACI)

4. Step-by-Step Procedure

Phase I: Infrastructure and Policy Alignment

• Verify the current ERC H2020/Horizon Europe DMP template version via the Participant Portal.
• Define the datasets to be collected, processed, or generated.
• Establish a naming convention policy (ISO 8601 standard for dates; descriptive, non-ambiguous file labels).

Phase II: FAIR Compliance Drafting

• Findability: Register research outputs with a persistent identifier (DOI/Handle). Ensure comprehensive metadata (Dublin Core/DataCite).
• Accessibility: Define repository hosting. Confirm embargo periods (if applicable) and access protocols for restricted datasets.
• Interoperability: Specify formal vocabularies, ontologies, and file formats (e.g., CSV, JSON, NetCDF) that facilitate cross-platform reuse.
• Reusability: Document software dependencies, license types (CC-BY, CC0), and provenance (README.txt/metadata.xml).

Phase III: Security and Budgeting

• Audit storage infrastructure for GDPR compliance (encryption at rest/in transit).
• Allocate specific budget lines for long-term archiving and repository costs (eligible under Horizon Europe).
• Perform a final review against the ERC ethics self-assessment module.

5. Quality Assurance & Pro-Tips

• Metric Thresholds: All metadata must achieve a "High" score on the automated Metadata Quality Index (MQI) before repository ingest.
• Pro-Tip 1: Do not treat the DMP as a static document; it is a "living" artifact. Schedule quarterly updates to reflect changes in methodology.
• Pro-Tip 2: Leverage persistent identifiers (ORCID for researchers, ROR for organizations) early to minimize disambiguation errors during metadata ingestion.
• Common Pitfall: Underestimating the technical debt of "proprietary format lock-in." Always prioritize open, machine-readable formats.

6. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: My data contains sensitive PII that cannot be made public. How does this impact the DMP? A: Adopt the principle: "As open as possible, as closed as necessary." You must specify that data is restricted, provide the justification, and outline the controlled access mechanisms (e.g., Data Access Committees) within the DMP.

Q: What is the minimum metadata standard required for ERC compliance? A: At minimum, you must provide the dataset title, creator, identifier, publisher, and publication year, structured according to the DataCite Metadata Schema.

Document Author: Julian Vance, Chief Architect, Template Registry. Approval Status: Finalized.