University addresses funders’ changing requirements for data sharing
University of Chicago experts across schools, divisions, and departments are working together to develop solutions that ensure researchers meet evolving data requirements from US government funders.
Reflecting the University’s commitment to research excellence and integrity and data accessibility in scholarship, a new committee on Research Data Management and Sharing will coordinate research data resources across campus and develop recommendations for future services that support better research data practices.
Federal funding agencies are now developing policies that require researchers who receive federal funding to make their publications and data available freely upon publication. They will also require that citation information and persistent identifiers related to federally funded research also be made freely and publicly available. While most agencies will work toward releasing new policies by White House Office of Science and Technology Policy deadline of Dec. 31, 2025, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) instituted a new Research Data Management and Sharing Policy in January 2023.
Enabling our researchers to meet these requirements will require coordination among data service providers across UChicago to provide visible, streamlined support for all parts of the research data lifecycle. The University is grateful to the members of the committee who represent key stakeholders in data support at UChicago. Members are:
- Torsten Reimer, University Librarian and Dean of the University Library, Chair
- Anna Jackson, Director of Pre-Award and Sponsored Development (URA)
- Birali Runesha, Associate Vice President for Research Computing; Director, Research Computing Center
- Cecilia Smith, Director of Digital Scholarship (Library)
- Elena Zinchenko, Assistant Provost for Research
- Josh Beck, Associate Dean, Academic Affairs and Capital Planning (SSD)
- Julian Solway, Dean for Translational Medicine (BSD)
- Kevin Boyd, Chief Information Officer
- Ryan Landek, Executive Director of Computing and IT (PSD)
- Yvonne McConico, Director of Data Governance & Stewardship (Booth)
Share your ideas
As the committee embarks on its charge, we invite the University community to share ideas as to how UChicago can enhance its support for research data management and sharing. This input will help the committee to make the complex challenge of managing research data easier and reduce the burden of compliance with funder mandates.
Please email datasharing@uchicago.edu with your insights or with data support questions.
Current resources for research data management
If you need support with management of research data, the following services are already available to you.
- University Research Administration offers data services pre- and post- award, including proposal development and data use agreements.
- The University of Chicago Library manages the DMPTool, which guides researchers through writing data management and sharing plans, and the Knowledge@UChicago repository, where researchers can deposit their datasets to meet funder access policies.
- The Research Computing Center enables high performance computing and data management solutions.
- IT Services maintains storage options for data actively being collected and analyzed.
- Many academic units also provide local high-performance computing, data management, and data storage solutions.
