Beyond compliance: smart DMPs with the Data Stewardship Wizard at UKCEH

This lightning talk was delivered as part of the 'Evolving DMPs: Smart, active, integrated, useful!' workshop organised by the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure at the 20th International Digital Curation Conference. Abstract: At the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology we have transformed our approach to data management planning by considering the DMP to be a living collaborative document, updated throughout the project lifecycle, and shaped by all project partners. This is facilitated by use of the Data Stewardship Wizard (DSW), which supports dynamic DMPs through a structured questionnaire that adapts to the nature of each project and prompts consideration of all relevant aspects of data management. Questions are augmented with links to guidance on a dedicated portal and other expert sources, backed by support from a Data Stewardship Team, whose members have domain-specific expertise. Researchers are encouraged to improve practice through the assignment of FAIR metrics to key questions. The DSW also supports machine actionability to integrate with our project management system, enable stakeholder notifications, and inform reporting tools. The process and outcomes of environmental research can have significant impacts making research ethics an essential component of data management, including ethical use of AI. We have embedded a research ethics checklist into our outline DMP questionnaire for project proposals, and the Research Ethics Committee automatically receive notifications of projects likely to require a full ethics review. We are also working towards including questions on the CARE principles. A unified DMP tool provides organisational insight into data management practices, including tracking progress towards FAIR data, repositories used, storage and compute required, and third-party datasets licensed. These insights support strategic planning and ensure research infrastructure remains fit for purpose. Realising the full benefits of data management planning remains a key challenge. By reframing it as an active, integrated tool that benefits researchers, stakeholders and communities, it can become a valued part of the research process. It can foster collaboration and increase impact, leading to increasingly FAIR and ethical data. Speaker biography: Matt is a Data Steward – Technical Specialist in the Digital Research group at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Matt leads technical development, and maintain day-to-day operational infrastructure, of data management and governance tools as part of the Environment Information Data Centre and UKCEH’s Data Stewardship Team.