Abstract
The work of the Jisc Managing Research Data programme is – along with the rest of the UK higher education sector – taking place in an environment of increasing pressure on research funding. In order to justify the investment made by Jisc in this activity – and to help make the case more widely for the value of investing time and money in research data management – individual projects and the programme as a whole must be able to clearly express the resultant benefits to the host institutions and to the broader sector. This paper describes a structured approach to the measurement and description of benefits provided by the work of these projects for the benefit of funders, institutions and researchers. We outline the context of the programme and its work; discuss the drivers and challenges of gathering evidence of benefits; specify benefits as distinct from aims and outputs; present emerging findings and the types of metrics and other evidence which projects have provided; explain the value of gathering evidence in a structured way to demonstrate benefits generated by work in this field; and share lessons learned from progress to date.
Highlights
The work of the Jisc Managing Research Data programme aims to produce an improvement in the way research data is managed throughout the research lifecycle in a range of institutions across the UK
The broad alignment in activities and outputs across the projects of MRD02 coincides with a similar level of alignment in benefits and evidence emerging across the programme
Some benefits follow from specific outputs while others follow from the ensemble of outputs which comprise the research data management (RDM) support service
Summary
This work is – along with the rest of the UK higher education sector – taking place in an environment of increasing pressure on research funding; in order to justify the investment made by Jisc in this activity, projects and the programme as a whole must be able to express clearly the resultant benefits to the host institutions and to the broader sector. This justifies funder investment but is essential to make the case for sustainable investment within institutions in a period of contraction of resources (Whyte and Tedds, 2011). There is a distinction to be made between the tangible benefits a specific project may bring to an institution, research group or discipline, and the broader benefits which it is argued may emanate from improved availability of research data
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