Funding agencies often require plans for your data – so make sure you have one
A data management plan (DMP) is a document you create that sets out how you will organize, store and share your research data at each stage in your project. A DMP is a living document that can be modified to accommodate changes in the course of your research.
For step-by-step guidance in creating a Data Management Plan, we recommend the following online tools:
- DMP Assistant – Create DMPs for Canadian funding agencies, such as CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC.
UBC campus-wide DMPs Working Group has prepared two custom templates for our researchers to write a data management plan:- UBC Simplified Template (Pre-Funding Phase): This short template and guidance are designed to be used when a research team applies for grant funding and needs to plan their research data lifecycle. The UBC simplified template has been updated by the campus-wide Data Management Plans Working Group (DMPs WG) in May 2025.
- UBC Comprehensive Template (Post-Funding Phase): This detailed template is designed to be used after a research team obtains grant funding and needs to plan its research data lifecycle. The UBC comprehensive template has been updated by the campus-wide Data Management Plans Working Group (DMPs WG) in May 2025.
- DMPTool – Create DMPs for US funding agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation.
Before collecting your data, you should consider the metadata you will need to provide with the data to make it easily understood, as well as the privacy, intellectual property, copyright, or licensing issues to be addressed with regard to the sharing.
Learn more:
- Hands-on, self-paced, step-by-step, computationally-reproducible UBC DMP training modules in Research Commons’ GitHub
- Indigenous Data
- Get DOIs
- Get an ORCID iD
- Organize your Data
- Format your Data
- Document and Describe your Data
- Store and Back up your Data
- Protect your Data
- Preserve your Data
Need help? Contact research.data@ubc.ca