NERC - Natural Environment Research Council

Time Limits

NERC expects everyone that it funds to manage the data they produce in an effective manner for the lifetime of their project, and for these data to be made available for others to use with as few restrictions as possible, and in a timely manner.
To protect the research process NERC will allow those who undertake NERC-funded work a period to work exclusively on, and publish the results of, the data they have collected. This period will normally be a maximum of two years from the end of data collection.

Yes. A mandatory, single page, Outline Data Management Plan (ODMP) will be required for all grant and fellowship applications submitted from 1 August 2012. The ODMP will identify data sets likely to be made available to NERC Data Centres for archiving and reuse at the end of the fellowship or grant.
The ODMP will form the final page of the Case for Support for all schemes. The Case for Support for successful proposals will be made available to the NERC Environmental Data Centres and, where appropriate, used to draft, in collaboration with the Principal Investigator, a full Data Management Plan (DMP). This full DMP should be mutually agreed between the Data Centre and the Principal Investigator within three months of the start date of the grant.
A Data Value Checklist has been produced to facilitate writing the DMP. During the award, Investigators are required to offer the appropriate Data Centre a copy of any dataset generated, so that the data can be made available for other researchers.
Guidance Notes for Completion of the Outline DMP (pdf - right click to save)
Click here for a link to NERC's Data Management Plan template

NERC requires that all environmental data of long-term value generated through NERC-funded activities must be submitted to NERC for long-term management and dissemination.
It is NERC's policy that all the environmental data held by the NERC Environmental Data Centres will normally be made openly available to any person or any organisation who requests them.
The only restrictions on access which we will apply are those supported by the exceptions on disclosure.