Skip to Main Content
Lakehead University and LU Library

Research Data Management

Services and tools available to researchers for managing data

Draft Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy

The Tri-Agency consists of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

The Tri-Agency has created a Research Data Management Policy that has three main components.

  1. Data management plans (DMPs) for researchers (piloting): By spring, 2022, the agencies will identify the initial set of funding opportunities that will require a DMP for their applications. The agencies will pilot the DMP requirement in targeted funding opportunities before this date.
  2. Institutional strategies for institutions (launched): By March 1, 2023, research institutions subject to this requirement must post their research data management strategies and notify the agencies when they have been completed.
  3. Data deposit for researchers (pending): After reviewing the institutional strategies and in line with the readiness of the Canadian research community, the agencies will phase in the deposit requirement that requires researchers to share their data "where ethical, cultural, legal and commercial requirements allow". The deposit must be made by time of publication. 

The targets funding opportunities (2) have been announced (June 2022):

  • CIHR
    • Network Grants in Skin Health and Muscular Dystrophy (Anticipated launch fall 2022 or early winter 2023)
    • Virtual Care/Digital Health Team Grants (Anticipated launch fall 2022 or early winter 2023)
    • Data Science for Equity (Anticipated launch fall 2022 or early winter 2023)
  • NSERC
    • Subatomic Physics Discovery Grants - Individual and Project (Anticipated launch summer 2023)
  • SSHRC
    • Partnership Grants Stage 2 (Anticipated launch summer 2023)

Please note: Pre-existing CIHR Deposit Requirements Remain
CIHR-funded researchers still have to comply with the deposit requirement in the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications, (Since Jan 2009), which requires that CIHR-funded researchers: 

  1. deposit bioinformatics, atomic, and molecular co-ordinate data into an appropriate public database immediately upon publication of results, and 
  2. retain all data sets associated with a given grant for a minimum of five years.