What is a research data policy for?

Research requires conscientious and planned handling of research data if it is to meet high scientific standards of transparency, visibility, sustainability, and quality.

Research data is defined as all data generated in the course of a research project, regardless of type, format, scope, and version. Research data management encompasses all stages of the data life cycle: planning, creating, processing, analysing, preserving, ging access, re-using.

In order to explicate the principles of transparency and professionalization of the research process for the area of research data management - as laid down in the Special Code of Conduct for Research (Besonderen Kodex Forschung) as well as the Statutes on Good Scientific Practice (Satzung zur guten wissenschaftlichen Praxis) - the Senate passed the following policy on the handling of research data on 27.09.2023.

Preamble

The Europa-Universität Flensburg (EUF) recognizes that research that aims to meet high scientific standards of transparency, visibility, sustainability and quality must be based on a conscientious and planned handling of research data.

Compliance with all legal and ethical aspects as well as the particularities of individual subject cultures have to be the main focus. The protection of sensible (personal) research data is a top priority.

The EUF creates a suitable framework to provide its researchers with sufficient support in implementing these requirements. The relevant contact points and committees for research data management, data protection and ethics are available to all university members.

Definition

Research data refers to all data generated as part of a research project, regardless of type, format, scope and version. Research data management encompasses all stages of the data life cycle: planning, collection, evaluation/processing, backup, documentation, archiving, dissemination and subsequent use.

Scope of application

The Research Data Policy applies to all EUF members and affiliates. This includes visiting researchers and lecturers and also extends to collaborations with external partners and institutions. Deviating requirements in the context of third-party funding must be given priority.

Requirements for the processing of research data

Research data management is carried out in compliance with current professional standards and guidelines to ensure good scientific practice. Information on collected data (metadata, legal and ethical considerations), responsibilities, data whereabouts (publication, archiving), rights of use and subsequent use are documented in a data management plan.

Public access to research data should be granted in principle - provided there are no legal or ethical objections - and is the basis for subsequent use. For this purpose, the use of persistent identifiers (DOI, etc.) is expressly recommended.

Responsibilities, rights and obligations

The responsibilities, rights and obligations lie equally with the university and her researchers.

Research and teaching

Research data management follows all organizational, statutory, institutional and other contractual and legal requirements.

The expertise with regards to subject-specific requirements and approaches can only lie with the subjects and their researchers. They are therefore responsible to research and comply with all data management standards that apply to them and their specialist societies.

University

The EUF assumes its responsibility towards her members by setting up a central, interdisciplinary advisory structure that guarantees access to national and international repositories and provides advice on research data management issues from the planning phase to the end of the project.

The university provides her members and affiliates with access to research data and cooperates with scientific partner institutions within the framework of research data management and research data infrastructures. She provides central access to research data published by her researchers - including in external repositories - by means of a research information system in order to document and recognize the university's research achievements.

She also offers general information material and training courses to ensure basic skills in data management (data literacy) at all educational levels. She strives to keep administrative burdens low through organizational and technical measures.

Contact persons for support will be announced separately.

Validity

This policy was adopted by the EUF Senate on 27.09.2023 and comes into force immediately.

Evaluation

This policy is reviewed every three years by all participating central institutions and committees to ensure that it is up to date, in order to adapt it to current requirements, infrastructural developments and the needs of researchers.

"What is Open Access?

Open access means that academic literature should be available free of charge and publicly on the Internet, so that interested parties can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search in, refer to, and otherwise use the full texts in any legal way possible, without financial, legal, or technical barriers beyond those associated with Internet access itself.

The October 22, 2003 publication of the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities" and the annual conferences set in motion by this act initiated a process that has raised global awareness of the accessibility issues surrounding scholarly information. The year 2013 marked the tenth anniversary of the publication of the Berlin Declaration.

Further information on Open Access can be found on the DFG-funded information platform open-access.net as well as on the Open Access Infopoint Schleswig-Holstein.

Open Access Policy of the Flensburg University of Applied Sciences (HSF) and the Europa-Universität Flensburg (EUF)

HSF and EUF advocate and demand open access to the results of scientific research and to the sources of cultural heritage, as called for in the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities".

As part of their social responsibilities, HSF and EUF are committed to guarantee free access to the scientific results of their researchers to all people.

Hence, they expressly recommend their researchers to publish scientific work in openly accessible digital form ("open access"), either directly via peer reviewed open access journals ("gold model") or simultaneously resp. delayed via open access portals or institutional repositories ("green model").

Researchers freely decide individually and according to their respective disciplinary publication culture about the form of their publications.

HSF and EUF encourage their researchers to present their research results to the global scientific community and the general public via open access.

Therefore, all researchers are recommended to apply for dedicated open access publication resources in their third-party funds.

The goal is to use open access to publish research results at HSF and EUF to the global public in a timely manner and, at the same time, to promote the dissemination of scientific findings and to increase visibility and long-term availability of publications.

The open access officers at HSF and EUF support and advise all researchers in their efforts to publish in open access.

Flensburg, 18^th December 2017