What is Research Data Management?
Research Data Management (RDM) refers to how we organise, store, preserve and share our research data. Effectively managing your research data has many benefits both whilst you are working on your research, and later when you need to refer to it again, when you come to publish, and when you share that data with others. Good practices in managing research data leads to research data that are:
- Organised and documented in a consistent manner
- Stored securely so they are easy to retrieve and protected from loss and damage
- Easier to understand and use
- Easier to share and reuse
RDM is closely associated with the concepts of FAIR data - Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability. The principles of FAIR data make research data that is shared for discoverable and usable for the wider scientific community, and particularly for applications using machine-readability. Following best practices for RDM make it easier to make your data FAIR so that when you publish or share the data, it has maximum value for the scientific community. For more information about FAIR, see Sharing data and FAIR.
What to do next
- Learn about research data
- Learn about the Research Data Lifecycle
- Learn about data management planning
- Find out how to get help with research data management
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Creator: Cerys Willoughby, Louise Saul
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Last modified date: 2025-03-25
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