NERC data policy states that all environmental data of long-term value generated through NERC-funded activities must be submitted to NERC for long-term management and dissemination. In practice, this requires researchers to offer the data they have produced to the appropriate NERC Data Centre for curation and publication.
Occasionally, the Data Centre supporting you will recommend an alternative repository for you to deposit your data with. This may be due to another NERC Data Centre being more appropriate for the area of science the data relates to. In some cases, the data may be best held and made available through specialist repositories which have been approved by NERC to hold the data it has funded. Data falling into this category includes 'omics and social science data and model code.
'Omics data
'Omics data is often best deposited in a specialist sequence repository. This is usually one of the repositories within the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) which comprises: EMBL-EBI, DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) and NCBI (GenBank). If you wish to deposit your sequence data with a specialist repository, please ensure that you have agreed this with the appropriate NERC Data Centre before you proceed. If it is agreed that the data can be deposited with the specialist 'omics repository, you will need to provide us with the accession number for the dataset once the deposit is complete. We will record this information and report to NERC that you have met the requirements of the NERC Data Policy.
Social science data
Social science data is often best deposited with the UK Data Service (UKDS) as they are the principal repository for economic, population and social research in the UK. If you have generated social science data from a NERC grant, please get in touch with us and we will let you know where the data should be deposited. If it is agreed the data can be deposited with the UKDS, you will need to provide us with the DOI for the dataset once the deposit is complete. We will record this information and report to NERC that you have met the requirements of the NERC Data Policy.
Model code
To deposit model code with long-term value, designed to be re-used within the community, you should ensure the code is in a GitHub repository. It is best practice to publish a snapshot of the repo in Zenodo. In this way you can obtain a DOI from Zenodo which will simplify referencing and sharing of the code. You should let the EIDC know that this is what you have done and provide us with the Zenodo DOI so that we can record this information and report to NERC that you have met the requirements of the NERC Data Policy. If you are depositing output data from the model with us, we will include the code's DOI in our catalogue record to link the two outputs of your research.
Please remember:
- If you are depositing with another approved repository, this MUST be agreed by a NERC Data Centre before you proceed.
- If you deposit your data at an approved repository you MUST contact the relevant NERC Data Centre to let them know the details of the deposit, specifically the DOI or accession number for the data deposited. This is so we can inform NERC that you have met the requirements of the NERC Data Policy and so that NERC can track the outputs of the research it has funded.
- Depositing your data with an approved repository without agreement from NERC and/or failing to provide details about the deposit, specifically the DOI or accession number, may result in NERC being informed that the grant has failed to adhere to the NERC Data Policy, which may affect your ability to attract future funding.