Editorial commentary
The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) is a UK centre of expertise in research data management and digital curation, established in 2005 by a consortium led by the University of Edinburgh — following a competitive bid process run by Jisc, with the winning consortium selected in November 2003 and operations beginning in early 2004. It is best known among research administrators as the organization behind DMPonline, the UK’s most widely used data management planning tool.
Last verified August 25, 2026 against the DCC’s own site (dcc.ac.uk) and its Wikipedia entry’s institutional history.
Origin and Host Institutions
The DCC’s founding consortium, selected by Jisc in November 2003, was led by the University of Edinburgh (through its School of Informatics, National e-Science Centre, EDINA, and the AHRC Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law), together with HATII at the University of Glasgow, UKOLN at the University of Bath, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council. The centre formally launched on November 5, 2004 and is headquartered in Edinburgh. As of July 2016 the DCC is no longer directly funded by Jisc, though its core partnership with the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow continues.
What the DCC Does
The DCC describes its mission as “building capacity, capability and skills for research data management” across UK higher education and research institutions. In practice this spans several distinct activities:
- DMPonline — a free web tool that generates a data management plan from a funder- or institution-specific template, pre-loaded with current templates for UKRI’s constituent councils, Horizon Europe, Wellcome Trust, NSF, and others.
- Training and guidance — how-to guides, briefing papers, case studies, and webinars covering the practical mechanics of data curation, aimed at researchers and the institutional staff who support them.
- Consultancy — advisory support for institutions developing their own research data management policy.
- The Curation Lifecycle Model — a reference framework, published 2007–2008, describing the full sequence of actions (creation, appraisal, ingest, preservation, storage, access, reuse, transformation) involved in curating a digital object over its lifetime, still widely cited in RDM training materials.
DCC vs. DMPonline: Organization vs. Tool
Research administrators sometimes conflate the two, but the DCC is the organization and DMPonline is one of its products — the DCC also produces training, guidance, and consultancy that has nothing to do with the DMPonline tool specifically. CASRAI’s DMPTool vs. DMPonline comparison covers how DMPonline stacks up against its main US-based counterpart, DMPTool, which is built and maintained by the University of California Curation Center rather than the DCC.
Why This Matters for Research Administration
For UK institutions, the DCC is typically the first stop for research-data-management guidance and the default tool (DMPonline) most research offices point investigators to when a Data Management Plan is required — UKRI’s constituent councils’ current funder templates are maintained directly in DMPonline, so using the tool is usually the fastest route to a compliant plan structure. Outside the UK, the DCC’s guidance and Curation Lifecycle Model are also widely cited as general RDM reference material, independent of whether an institution actually uses DMPonline itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Digital Curation Centre a UK government body?
No. It is a university-hosted centre, originally established through Jisc funding via a consortium led by the University of Edinburgh, not a statutory government agency.
Is DMPonline the same thing as the DCC?
No. DMPonline is a tool the DCC builds and maintains; the DCC itself is a broader centre of expertise that also provides training, guidance, and consultancy unrelated to that specific tool.
Does the DCC only support UK researchers?
Its core funding and institutional base are UK-focused, but DMPonline includes templates for non-UK funders (NSF, Horizon Europe, Wellcome Trust among them), and its guidance materials are used internationally.
Who funds the DCC today?
Jisc funding ended in 2016. The DCC’s ongoing core partnership is with the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, alongside project-specific and institutional-subscription funding.
References
- Digital Curation Centre, “About,” dcc.ac.uk.
- Wikipedia, “Digital Curation Centre” — institutional history and founding-consortium details.
- Digital Curation Centre, DMPonline, dmponline.dcc.ac.uk.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Digital Curation Centre (DCC)"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/digital-curation-centre-dcc" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/digital-curation-centre-dcc",
"name": "Digital Curation Centre (DCC)",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/digital-curation-centre-dcc",
"description": "The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) is a UK centre of expertise in research data management and digital curation, established in 2005 by a consortium led by the University of Edinburgh following a competitive bid process run by Jisc. It is best known for DMPonline, the UK's most widely used data management planning tool, but also provides training, guidance, consultancy, and the widely-cited Curation Lifecycle Model. Jisc funding ended in 2016; the DCC's ongoing core partnership is with the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/machine-actionable-dmps#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/digital-curation-centre-dcc",
"sameAs": [],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"dateModified": "2026-08-25T06:29:56",
"inLanguage": "en"
}
