Guides: NIH Data Management &amp; Sharing Plan (DMSP): Budgeting for Sharing Data

What can you budget for?

Under the new policy in January 2023, investigators may request funds toward data management and sharing in the budget and budget justification sections of their applications.

Reasonable, allowable costs may be included in NIH budget requests for:

Curating data
Developing supporting documentation
Formatting data according to accepted community standards, or for transmission to and storage at a selected repository for long-term preservation and access
De-identifying data
Preparing metadata to foster discoverability, interpretation, and reuse
Local data management considerations, such as unique and specialized information infrastructure necessary to provide local management and preservation (for example, before deposit into an established repository).
Preserving and sharing data through established repositories, such as data deposit fees.
- If the Data Management & Sharing Plan (DMSP) proposes deposition to multiple repositories, costs associated with each proposed repository may be included.

Unacceptable budget request elements:

Infrastructure costs that are included in the institutional overhead (e.g., Facilities and Administrative costs)
Costs associated with the routine conduct of research
Costs associated with collecting or gaining access to research data (e.g., data access fees)

All allowable costs submitted in budget requests must be incurred during the performance period, even for scientific data and metadata preserved and shared beyond the award period.

Guidance for Budgeting for Data Sharing

NIH Budgeting for Data Management & Sharing Page
This is the NIH page on budgeting for data management & sharing, which has some helpful information on requesting and justifying costs.
Approaches for Researchers: Forecasting Costs for Preserving, Archiving, and Promoting Access to Biomedical Data
Webinar for National Academies on budgeting for sharing biomedical data. Speakers discussed how researchers can plan for the life cycle of their data and how to create an environment conducive to cost forecasting of sustainable data management.
Planning for Long-Term Use of Biomedical Data
Proceedings from a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine workshop on a framework for forecasting long-term costs for preserving, archiving, and accessing biomedical data.
Life-Cycle Decisions for Biomedical Data
Guidebook for examining and assessing approaches and considerations for forecasting costs for preserving, archiving, and promoting access to biomedical research data.