Research Data Management: Home

Research Data Management (RDM) is about creating, finding, organising, storing, and preserving data within any research process. It covers the whole research life cycle and the process also creates a data life cycle. This Library Guide gives an overview on RDM.

Research data is the documents, information, records, files or even computer codes that are used or collected during the research process. Common examples of research data include questionnaires, laboratory notebooks, recordings, specimens, images or photographs that are required to reproduce the original research results.

According to Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), "Research data is defined as recorded factual material commonly retained by and accepted in the scientific community as necessary to validate research findings; although the majority of such data is created in digital format, all research data is included irrespective of the format in which it is created."