UKRI’s common data management plan template asks applicants to describe, section by section, how research data will be generated, documented, stored, shared and preserved — but the level of detail, word limit and submission requirement differ by council: MRC and BBSRC mandate a full plan, NERC requires only a one-page outline, and EPSRC does not require submission at all.
A data management plan (DMP) is a structured document, submitted with or alongside a grant application, that specifies how research data will be collected, documented, stored, shared and preserved throughout and after a funded project. For UKRI-funded researchers, the practical difficulty is not knowing what a DMP is — it is knowing which version of the UKRI data management plan template applies to their council, how long it should be, and what each field is actually asking for. This walkthrough goes section by section across the four councils most research administrators handle together on multi-strand or interdisciplinary awards: MRC, BBSRC, NERC and EPSRC.
- What does UKRI’s common data management plan template cover?
- How do requirements differ across MRC, BBSRC, NERC and EPSRC?
- Completing the template field by field
- Common questions about the UKRI data management plan
- What this means for multi-council applicants
What does UKRI’s common data management plan template cover?
UKRI does not operate a single, mandatory template across all seven research councils. Instead, each council publishes its own guidance built around a common core of questions: what data will be produced, how it will be documented, where it will be stored, who can access it, and how long it will be retained. This shared structure is why researchers refer informally to a “UKRI data management plan template”, even though the actual document you complete depends on which council is funding the work.
The starting point for most multi-council applicants is the MRC data management plan template, a Word document published via UKRI’s publications library, because several other councils’ library-hosted templates (including NC3Rs-badged studies) reuse its structure. NERC, BBSRC and EPSRC each layer council-specific expectations — word limits, submission timing, and retention periods — on top of that shared skeleton.
How do requirements differ across MRC, BBSRC, NERC and EPSRC?
The single biggest source of error in multi-council DMPs is applying one council’s rules to another council’s proposal. The table below sets out the four core differences research administrators need to check before drafting.
| Council | DMP required at application? | Template source | Length | Minimum data retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MRC | Yes — mandatory for all funding proposals | MRC Data Management Plan template (UKRI publications library) | 500–1,500 words; 1,500 words for longitudinal studies, population cohorts, genetic, omics, imaging data and biobanks | 10 years (20 years for population health and clinical studies) |
| BBSRC | Yes — mandatory for grant applications | BBSRC template via DMPOnline (Digital Curation Centre) | Maximum 500 words (check individual grant-stream variation) | 10 years after project completion |
| NERC | Yes — one-page outline at application; full plan later | NERC Outline Data Management Plan template and guidance (UKRI publications library) | One page at application; full plan agreed with the relevant NERC data centre within 3–6 months of award start | 10 years minimum |
| EPSRC | No — not submitted with the application | No dedicated EPSRC council template; DMPOnline hosts an EPSRC-structured version for internal use | No fixed limit — proportionate to the project | 10 years from the end of any privileged-access period |
EPSRC is the outlier: it does not require a DMP to be submitted with the proposal, but most host institutions’ own research data policies still require one to exist internally so costs and storage needs are planned accurately. STFC sits closer to MRC and BBSRC — a DMP is mandatory for most schemes and capped at two sides of A4 — but, unlike MRC, STFC does not prescribe a fixed template.
Completing the template field by field
Across MRC, BBSRC, NERC and EPSRC guidance, the same seven fields recur, even where wording and word allowances differ. Address each one in this order.
- Data collection and generation. State the type of data (quantitative, qualitative, imaging, genomic, environmental sensor data, software), the format, the estimated volume, and whether it is newly generated or reused from an existing source.
- Documentation and metadata. Name the metadata standard you will apply and describe accompanying documentation — a data dictionary, README file or laboratory notebook — needed for another researcher to interpret the dataset without you.
- Ethics, consent and legal basis. Cover informed consent, anonymisation or pseudonymisation methods, and who holds intellectual property rights, particularly for MRC-funded clinical or population studies, where this field is scrutinised most closely.
- Storage and security during the project. Specify where data will sit while the grant is active, backup frequency, and access controls — this is where EPSRC-funded teams should still document internal practice even though nothing is submitted to the council.
- Long-term preservation. Name the repository (an institutional archive, a NERC environmental data centre, or the UK Data Service for ESRC-adjacent social science data) and confirm the retention period matches your council’s minimum from the table above.
- Data sharing and access conditions. State which datasets will be shared openly, any embargo or proprietary period, and the justification if some data cannot be shared — commercial sensitivity, participant privacy or national security are the standard justifications UKRI accepts.
- Responsibilities and resourcing. Name who owns data management delivery after the grant ends and itemise any storage, curation or specialist-staff costs, which can — and should — be included in the full economic cost of the proposal.
For MRC and NERC applications specifically, the plan text is typically copied directly into the Je-S or funding-service application form rather than uploaded as a separate attachment — check the individual call documentation, since attachment rules vary by scheme and change between funding rounds.
Common questions about the UKRI data management plan
How do you write a data management plan?
Start from your funding council’s specific template rather than a generic one, then work through data collection, documentation, storage, sharing and retention in turn. Keep language concrete and proportionate to your project’s data volume, and justify any decision not to share data rather than leaving it unexplained.
What is included in a data management plan?
A complete plan covers the types of data produced, the metadata and documentation standards used, storage and security arrangements, the repository chosen for preservation, access and sharing conditions, and the retention period. UKRI councils also expect a statement of who is responsible for delivery and what resources this requires.
Do you need a data management plan for a UKRI grant?
It depends on the council. MRC, BBSRC, NERC and STFC require a DMP to be submitted with most funding proposals, while EPSRC does not require submission, and AHRC has no general DMP requirement at all. Always confirm the specific call documentation, since requirements can vary by scheme within a single council.
What does a good data management plan look like?
A strong plan is specific to the project rather than generic, stays within the council’s stated word or page limit, and answers every field with a concrete detail — a named repository, a defined retention period, a stated metadata standard — instead of a vague intention. Reviewers assess it alongside the rest of the proposal during peer review.
What this means for multi-council applicants
Institutions running interdisciplinary programmes — a BBSRC-MRC joint call, or a NERC-EPSRC environmental engineering award — cannot draft one DMP and submit it unchanged to both funders. Word limits alone range from 500 words (BBSRC) to 1,500 words (MRC’s most data-intensive study types), and only NERC requires a two-stage outline-then-full-plan process. Research administration teams supporting these awards should build a field-by-field checklist per council into their proposal workflow, rather than relying on a single house template.
As UKRI continues to consolidate open-research expectations across its councils, researchers should expect incremental convergence on shared metadata and repository standards — but not, in the near term, a single mandatory cross-council template. Until that happens, matching the right template to the right council, at the right length, remains the determining factor in a compliant submission.
For teams coordinating research administration workflows across funders and councils, see CASRAI’s research administration resources, and consult the CASRAI Dictionary for definitions of related research data terminology.
