1 Introduction

In January 2023, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) introduced a new Data Management and Sharing Policy (DMSP). This brief primer, developed by the Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship, offers general guidance on the following aspects of the the Policy for researchers preparing NIH grant proposals:

  1. When applying for an NIH grant, you must submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMS Plan). This Plan is submitted as a separate file in the course of preparing the grant paperwork that will be submitted to NIH, and asks you to specify your plans for sharing your research data at the conclusion of your project via a third party data repository (Section 2).
  2. If the grant application is successful, you should follow data management best practices in the course of the research project, which will help to improve the quality of the research data that is ultimately published. (Section 3)
  3. At the conclusion of your research, you must fulfill the data sharing commitments established in the DMS Plan by depositing your research data in a data repository where others can independently access and download the data. (Section 4).