Data Management Plan (v1.3, D4.1)

The POLARIN Data Management Plan (DMP), developed in alignment with the Horizon Europe DMP template (V1; April 2022) and Article 17 of the Annotated Grant Agreement, outlines the comprehensive framework for managing research data across the project's lifecycle. It describes the types of data collected, the methodologies for ensuring data quality, and the adoption of FAIR principles to enhance accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. The DMP goes beyond open access by embracing open science practices and ensuring that all observational data and derived products are freely available through EU public repositories, integrated via the POLARIN catalogue developed under WP4. More specifically POLARIN Data Management aims to: improve access to polar data by harmonising data management standards and workflows covering the complete life cycle of data from acquisition to long-term archiving reduce data fragmentation between the different RIs improve the data landscape and the consumption of data facilitate access to metadata, data and data services will be offered user-friendly and free of charge to users complying with the RI’s access policy, through a single-entry portal and without selecting them make more data available build a single-entry portal harvesting data from different RIs and making it available via the web portal. The DMP also addresses data sharing protocols, including compliance with GDPR and other relevant regulations, to facilitate accessibility and reuse by the wider research community. Specifically, it includes: Data collection methodologies and formats Metadata standards and documentation practices Procedures for quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) Long-term storage solutions and repository selection Conditions for data sharing and re-use Measures to ensure ethical, legal, and secure data handling As a living document, the DMP is periodically updated, with major versions planned at M6 and M30, along with interim snapshots, to reflect evolving project practices and provide transparent guidance to stakeholders. This version represents an intermediate version of the DMP (1.3), addressing some concepts of POLARIN Open Science approach, including the use of Zenodo and the Data Hub, and providing links to relevant resources.