Research data management costs

There are various costs associated with data management. Be aware of these costs from the outset and allocate the project resources required to cover the outlay.

Among the likely costs are:

• Ethical reviews.
• Staff to manage the research data (data manager, research engineer).
• Labour (describing and organising data, data cleansing, de-identification, etc.).
• Software (purchases or licences).
• Extra storage space for large datasets.
• Secure storage of personal data and sensitive information (secure servers, security containers).
• Data-sharing via a database (some databases charge a fee).
• Building and maintaining the project’s own database or website (including maintenance costs once the project is completed).