Research Data Management

Download the full City St George's Library Research Data Management Policy.

Purpose

City St George’s, University of London recognises that good research data management demonstrates the quality and integrity of our research practices enables results that are reproducible and can be validated demonstrates regard for data protection and security and protects intellectual property complies with funder, publisher and community policies, standards and expectations ensures that research data can be shared, reused and preserved in the long term

Scope

This is a policy for the University, but there may be disciplinary or domain-specific standards and best practice applicable.

This policy applies to all research conducted by members of City St George’s, including clinical researchers and NHS staff with honorary contracts with City St George’s.

Principles

Research data handled at the University should be managed in compliance with UKRI’s Common Principles on Research Data and aligned with the FAIR principles, as well as other funder and community standards.

All researchers and supervisors (including postgraduate and undergraduate students who participate in research projects at the University) are responsible for familiarising themselves with and adhering to legislation, regulatory requirements, contractual and ethical obligations, funder policies and good practice that pertain to their research data. The Figshare repositories are not available to postgraduate or undergraduate students for storing their data.

Where research is funded by a third party, any agreements made with that party concerning intellectual property rights, access rights and the storage and ownership of data take precedence over this policy.

Where research involves the use of data owned by a third party, researchers must abide by licences or terms of use governing the data. Personal or sensitive data must be handled with care and due consideration given to GDPR.

Strategies for research data management and sharing should be considered from the outset: where required, grant applications for funded research must include a data management plan (DMP). DMPs are strongly encouraged for all research projects, regardless of funding streams.

Where possible, researchers should seek to recover direct costs of managing research data from their funder(s).

Roles and responsibilities

Principal Investigators (PIs) and student research supervisors hold primary responsibility for compliance with this policy.  IT Services will provide resilient storage, backup and technical advice in support of this policy, further information can be obtained through a Service Now request.

ResearchSupport@citystgeorges.ac.uk will be responsible for research contracts, regulatory support and intellectual property. Library Services will provide information and guidance on research data management, enabling adherence to this policy.

Procedure

Prior to uploading into Figshare, researchers are responsible for ensuring that research data are stored securely and protected from loss and unauthorised access. Data must be handled in accordance with University information governance policies and any relevant legislation.

Researchers should provide sufficient descriptive information about their research and data to ensure that data can be discovered, understood, and responsibly reused.

Research data should be made available via the St George’s data repository (Figshare) or the City data repository (also Figshare) with as few restrictions as possible and with appropriate safeguards where necessary, unless this would breach legislative, regulatory, contractual, ethical, or other obligations.

Journal articles must include a Data Availability Statement, which specifies what data are available to access, from where, and under what conditions.

Researchers must consider whether research data has commercial potential and, in consultation with the Department Research & Innovation, if it is suitable for protection and/or transfer under the University's Intellectual Property Regulations.

Access to research data during the course of a research project should be restricted to the collaborators on the research project in the first instance and only made available to other parties if there are no legal, contractual, ethical, or related restrictions preventing it (or these have been managed, such as through anonymisation of the research data and the preparation of a data access agreement for signing by the potential recipient of the research data) and with the permission of the research collaborators.

Unless legal or funder requirements specify otherwise, research data must be preserved after the completion of a project in line with University Retention Schedules if they substantiate research findings, support a patent application, are of acknowledged long-term value, or if there are other legal or regulatory requirements for data retention. Any data identified as not suitable for retention must be securely disposed of.

Research data managed by University staff should be passed on to line managers, PIs, or other appropriate party upon leaving the University to ensure the responsible stewardship of the data for its full retention period.

City St George’s is a public authority under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) 2004. City St George's is obliged to disclose information when requested, including research information, unless it is subject to exemption/exception clauses under FOIA/EIRs.

Advice and guidance

Comprehensive information on research data management can be found at Research data management

This covers key topics such as data management planning; ethical, legal and policy considerations; storage and preservation; data repositories and sharing; handling sensitive data Researchers requiring further advice can contact RDM support.

Failure to comply

Failure to comply with copyright law or other relevant legal obligations may result in material being withdrawn from public access and, where appropriate, may lead to disciplinary action under the appropriate procedures:

• Clerkenwell and Moorgate campuses Disciplinary Procedure
• Tooting campus Disciplinary Procedure
• Clerkenwell and Moorgate campuses Senate Regulation 13 Student Discipline
• Tooting campus Student Disciplinary Procedure.

Review

The policy will be reviewed every three years by the Scholarly Communications Manager and approved by the Library Leadership Team.

Last updated, August 2026.