Costing research data at The University of Manchester: a podcast
A discussion about the various different sides of costing for research projects, with a focus on costing research data
The University is purchasing a new costing tool for research projects. In order to provide some more information about the costing tool and what it can be used for, we sat down to have a conversation about how helpful it will be for costing research projects, with a focus on research data. This podcast brings together people working in Research IT, in the Research Support Offices and the Research Data Management team in the Library. We talk about the costing tool, the finance implications of proper costing and the viewpoint of various funders on managing costing requirements at the start of your project and how a data management plan (DMP) can help.
For more information about research data, please see our online resource, Research Data Explained or visit the Library’s Research Data Management website. For any questions please email us.
Listen to the podcast here, or read the full transcript below.
Transcript
Clare: Hi, and welcome to our podcast, brought to you by members of the Library’s Research Services, Research IT and Finance, Research Support. We’re going to talk to you about the various sides of costing for Research projects, with a focus on costing research data management.
Here today around the table we have: Traceyanne Sinclair (Research Support Manager in the Faculty of Science & Engineering); Iffat Khan (Senior Research Finance Officer), Mary McDerby (Research IT Demand Consultant); Bill Ayres (Research Data Management Strategic Lead) and me, Clare Liggins (Research Services Librarian for Research Data Management).
We’re going to talk about costing from our various points of view and have a bit of a chat about any key points that are raised.
So, to start off, Traceyanne, do you think you can give us an overview of the costing tool you have been working on?
T: Currently at the University of Manchester, we have a costing tool called pFACT and it’s a little bit out of date. We wanted to make sure that costing is done consistently throughout the University and that we’re capturing the right information in a nice new tool that will hopefully help everyone cost research in the best way.
T: Okay so the new research costing tool came about from the research lifecycle program that was a project that’s been set up called Project D, it is a costing tool and approach to model grants. The current costing tool, , is quite old and basic, it was introduced in 2008 and has not been supported since 2013. It’s been a while since it has received any kind of support. Most people use it as a salary calculator. They will put the academics time in and it will spit out the salary costs. However, most people do not necessarily put in other consumable costs such as Research Data Management storage. People may put that in. Usually, people pop the costs into a spreadsheet and those will go into determining the costs. These will end up going into grant applications. The new project D for the research costing tool came about because people were costing things in a different way throughout the three different faculties. We wanted to be able to provide more consistency around costing and make it more transparent to both researchers themselves, the schools, and the university, and to ensure that costing is more accurate. So, in 2018, requirements went out to some suppliers who have some nice solutions. Three came in to do demos and one of them was chosen. The chosen one was called BlackDackel, a Germany-based company. They have a background working with Pure, one of the systems currently used in the university. Hence, they have a good idea of how BlackDackel will link up with the current systems such as Pure and Oracle financials. It is a web-based solution and we hope that this new solution will provide more transparency and also allow the costs to be calculated in a better way-working with collaborations and approvals in a better way and analysing costs in real-time. We also want to be able to give different types of access to different types of people. Currently, pFACT can only be accessed by research support staff, and not academic staff. We hope that the new tool will enrol access to the research support staff and then to the academics. This is for academics who want to be more involved in the costings and as of now, they have to rely on the research support staff to provide them with that information. Whereas now, with this new tool, there will be a little bit of modelling and then it will be passed over to research support staff who will then continue with the costing and approval process as they can discern the costs a bit better as they are trained to understand the costs. So this new costing tool hopefully streamlines the process and integrates with the systems. At the moment we are working very closely with BlackDackel to ensure that the integration between Pure, CRM, and Oracle is working more seamlessly so that they talk to each other. We’re creating workflows, so when we’re putting in new costings, it brings you through the system and provides the correct information and applies the funder’s requirements in a better way to those costings. And we’re also doing some initial testing so we can identify any bugs, anything that might cause any problems in the future and get them dealt with before the full system is rolled out.
[00:05:28.070] — C
Do you have an idea of when it might be available to use, at this stage?
[00:05:33.720] — T
So we’re hoping mid-2020, so mid of this year. Just because there are a few things that we need to work through and understand, and we were waiting for some other systems to start being up and ready. But yeah, we’re hoping it’s in the middle of this year. So we are starting to go out to the schools and faculties to just give people an update of where we’re up to with the costing tool and introduce it to people who may not actually be aware that we’re going to be getting a new costing tool, I mean, most research support staff know that new costing tool is coming in and hopefully they’re quite excited about it because as I say, pFACT, It’s fine at the moment, but really people just use it as a salary calculator. So we’re hoping that new functionality will be available for people in the new costing tool- things like research data management. I mean, at the moment, there isn’t really anything that prompts people to cost research data management within pFACT, and that functionality doesn’t really exist. So we’re hoping that we can start putting a bit more functionality in the new system to be able to make people aware of what services and storage are available, link up to guidance so people know what to select and then be able to put it as a cost line in their budget and make it really clear that that is exactly what they’re costing for in their budget. So when it does go to the funder, we’ve got the history of what they’re applying for and they can put it on their justification of resources. So yeah, we’re working with them at the moment, so we’re hoping, it’s going really well actually, we’ve got a good relationship with them and I’m actually meeting with some people about guidance and what storage is available for people in the University of Manchester and what they can actually cost in their research grants.
[00:07:25.600] — C
Sounds very useful. Will there be any training?
[00:07:29.360] — T
Yes. So obviously, with new tools, there are new things, new training that comes along with that. So there will be a training module. We’re hoping to have different types of training available for staff. I think in the first instance, we’re going to train up kind of super users so then they can start disseminating information out to their staff. We’re also looking into having online training available for people like small bite-size modules and also guidance material on our Website.
[00:08:00.160] — T
Currently, our website is quite basic. So we’re hoping that we’ll be able to really gather lots of training material and then also link up to any guidance when it comes to how to cost things appropriately to the right place. So say, for example, Capsule equipment, there’s already a really good Capsule equipment page, but we want to make sure that people know where to find it. So if they go to our website, there’ll be a link and we’re hoping to also embed links in the system as well. So if you’re working through your costing in your budget and something flags up to say, oh, you’re talking about storage, then it will link out to the correct data storage website with the correct guidance just to help people through the process. But yeah, there will be robust training. So research support staff know how to use it well. And we’re hoping that introducing a new training program will pick up any missing training that’s happened in the past or hasn’t happened in the past. And then we’ll be able to have research support staff who will be well trained in the product and then they’ll be able to help the academic staff once it gets rolled out. So we’re hoping at the moment that we can have a kind of a two-stage rollout, one to support staff and one, the academic staff. That’s still kind of in its infancy and how we will do that, but that’s our hope.
[00:09:24.070] — M
With regards to support staff, especially the storage type services, how with the communication flow to them that somebody is actually asking for greater than the actual freely provided stores who should or if they need to provide extra hardware. How will the support services be signposted that this is going on?
[00:09:49.130] — T
So we’re hoping to embed what we’re calling a risk report. So anything that is flagged as a risk. So we’re looking at embedding rules behind in the system where if you select something and it’s above a certain threshold, then a flag will come up and it will take you out to some guidance so you can understand why it’s been flagged and how you can kind of select the correct thing. We’re not sure how that’s going to work at the moment, but that’s kind of what we’re hoping for. And if what we’re looking at doesn’t necessarily work in practice, we’ll find a different solution so people will know. And we’re hoping to go through a new training program, we’ll be able to give scenarios to research support staff and say, OK, so this is a scenario that you’re costing for. Have you thought about research storage, you know, your academic, his or her research encapsulates this sort of data? Are they thinking about this? You may need to be the prompt at that stage. The research support officer might need to be the prompt at that stage. And we’re hoping that retraining some people on these sorts of different scenarios we’ll be able to make them understand. “Oh, OK. That’s the flag. That’s a flag for me to go to that guidance and then update my academic and say, you know, you haven’t thought about recent research storage. Have you thought about costing it? And here’s the guidance.” And, you know, this is what you offered at university, but it looks like you might need more. So making sure that they have included that in their costings. So, yeah, we’re hoping that we can obviously use a training program to help flag that, but also have some sort of indicator within the system itself.
[00:11:39.620] — C
Has anyone got anything else they want to mention about the costing tool before we move on?
[00:11:45.130] — B
Well, let me say that I suppose in the context of training them perhaps it’s worth just considering that alongside the training provided directly around these systems and tools, it’s worth remembering that we do have the My Research Essentials training, that comes from the library. We’re looking at many options around enhancing the offering within that for researchers. So while looking at things like the data stewardship model, which is a great way of building those management skills into the training that we provide for researchers. And I think that’s going to be something that will have, you know, it takes a while to do that. But once you’ve done it, then you build a kind of layer of early career researchers and PGRs who have more experience in understanding, the field itself and understanding better how to think about the kind of data we’ll be generating and the volumes and apply that to these practical matters of when creating bids or going for grants, thinking about that in a more holistic way. So that’s something we’re developing as part of the ongoing work in the library around the RDM service.
[00:12:43.100] — T
Yeah and I think it’s great, catching those early career researchers at the start of their career and embedding those sorts of requirements at that start so they know every time they start, when they are applying for something new, it’s always in there. It’s kind of second nature for them. And I think that might have been something that has been missed in the past. Especially, you know, well-seasoned academics who “Oh, I did this last time and it was fine.” And I can completely understand that and I can sympathise with that. But there are kind of new policies that people do have to adhere to. And it’s making sure that the training that we do provide picks up those people as well. But yeah, it is great to get them at the start because that’s just embedded, isn’t it?
[00:13:24.840] — C
So moving on to finance. If you could talk a bit about the work that you do?
[00:13:30.610] — I
Sure. So in terms of research finance, the way we see it, is that we are the endpoint in the life of a research grant or contract. We manage that grant and its finances throughout its life. And then when it comes to the end of the project, we reconcile it, close it, feedback to the funder, submit our claims, and receive payment. But when we notice items, especially electronic hardware storage, USBs, external hard drives on a grant or a contract, straightaway our first point of checking almost, is what Traceyanne mentioned earlier, the justification of resources. The application, was this costed, was this applied for. And when we see that it wasn’t applied for, for example, the first thing we do is we remove it from the project and write it off to the school. And by doing this, this has two really negative ramifications. The first one being that the school has obviously had to take that hit financially to pay for those goods that they hadn’t anticipated or built into their budget. But also at the same time, if we are removing items from a project at the end of its life, what that does is it frees up the budget again, but does not allow the academic or the researchers any time to use up that budget, which eventually results in us returning the funds to the funder, which of course, is never a good thing. We should be trying to recover everything where we can. So from a finance point of view, it is unfortunately very black and white as it does have to be due to strict funder guidelines, audit requirements and so on. But if we see that it wasn’t costed for or it wasn’t anticipated, we simply just cannot allow that cost to be claimed. But from a research data management point of view, I imagine this also means that sometimes things may slip through the cracks, that there may be storage devices out there with sensitive information, confidential information that relates to research that we are responsible for. But there is no clear trail of where that research is actually being held, whether we’d be able to provide it in case of an audit and whether it might get into the wrong hands. So from a finance point of view, we are always looking at our recovery rate. And any time we have to remove something for our project and we cannot claim it from the funder, our recovery rate falls and that is never a good thing. And the more money that we return to a funder, the less likely we are that those funders will then give us those funds going forward, because they will just point at us and say, “well, last time we gave you this much money, you ended up returning quite a bit, so you’re obviously asking for a lot more than you realistically need.” Which is never a good thing. So from a finance point of view, I think it’s really interesting that this research data management project is ongoing. It’s bringing things to light that we weren’t previously aware of. But also, Traceyanne, you mentioned research support and academic staff would get the training, but is there an element of research data management training being rolled up potentially to finance as well at any point? Things that we should be flagging up to certain teams if we notice any grants with additional purchases of storage devices, is there someone that we should be raising this to?
[00:16:57.300] — C
I think maybe me? I mean, that’s definitely something that would be really beneficial, I think. I mean, we do a lot of training for researchers and PGRs, but not so much for members of staff working on these things. And that’s maybe something we should think about.
[00:17:17.760] — B
Yeah, that’s a great suggestion.
[00:17:24.510] — M
Research IT do a costing clinic workshop. Yeah, they do advertise via the Research IT website. The costing storage infrastructure, etc, so there is that element.
[00:17:37.020] — T
And do you find that the take up is more academic-based?
[00:17:38.400] — M
Lots of research support managers, grant writers. So it’s not just academics.
[00:17:49.050] — I
That’s good. So it sounds like there are resources out there, but maybe we should be signposting a bit more and saying that this is where you can find out more information. And are researchers aware if they needed additional storage. I know you already asked how are we going to flag this up going forward? But at the moment, if somebody needs more than what the university freely offers, is there a process in place for these researchers to request this from somebody?
[00:18:19.680] — M
There is a process that has been put together, built with research finance to pay the storage beyond the freely available. So that should already be there.
[00:18:31.470] — I
OK. So we’re definitely paying for it. But is there any system in place where, say, for example, I’m a PDRA, I requested the free allowance and two years into my project, I realise I’m going to exceed that limit in terms of the school paying for it already we’re doing that. We’re writing off so the school is paying for it, but as a PDRA, is there someone that I go to say, oh, I’m going to need a bit more or I think I’m gonna need significantly more. Is there something in place like that at the moment?
[00:19:02.340] — M
There is a request that they could make via the I.T. service help desk, so you can go there and add on to storage.
[00:19:10.400] — I
OK. That’s good.
[00:19:11.970] — M
Then a member of the research IT infrastructure team will work with you to cost, if it is costing for you, for you do get quite a good amount free at the point of use.
[00:19:24.420] — I
Yeah, so I mean from a finance point of view, we just work towards audit and funder requirements. So in layman’s terms, if it’s costed in, it’s great, we’ll allow it. If it’s not costed in the computer says no for now, unless we have written approval from the funder or they requested from the funder.
[00:19:43.830] — T
And I think from the Research Support Officer point of view, we don’t necessarily understand the implications of it and what it really means in practice when you’re looking at these lines of financial requests. You know, we’re not research-minded. So academics are writing their justifications of resources, and we’re just making sure that it matches what they’re asking for. And if it’s not in there, then we don’t know it exists. So we don’t really understand the science behind it and whether there is a requirement for extra storage. But yes, hopefully with a bit more training and maybe a bit more linking up these services, making everybody aware that these services do exist and these are the right people to point them to, then hopefully we can pick up any of those issues at the start. You know, the research support officer can say, OK, it looks like you may have or have you ever considered research data management, and not just the fact that you have to have a research data plan, but the storage behind it as well. They can ask those questions because they know that there is a service available, that there is storage that people can purchase and it can be added onto the grant and then it doesn’t have to be written off to the school. So making sure that all those things are linked up.
[00:21:05.880] — M
All that they need to pay for, other infrastructure, they need a review of the data classification, which could have costing issues as well if it’s highly restricted services. And part of our cost clinic would be good to join with research data management training, is looking at writing the proposal and supporting the proposal writing so that we do show that everything’s costed in. And it’s not just hardware, it’s also software engineers, which could be bought out to work on research projects and develop services on university infrastructure.
[00:21:45.280] — B
Yeah, I think it’s worth mentioning too that obviously within the concepts of Research Data Management at the university, we are looking at the expansion of the services they offer. There will be additional things like the long term digital preservation offerings and other services during the active project lifecycle. So these are all things that we’re going to have to a) tell people about and b) give them an idea of how to think about these kinds of costing matters right at the beginning, but also during the lifecycle and be responsive to those needs. To think about how we can help as we go on.
[00:22:18.330] — M
That’s very true. The long term preservation of the data is costly. Some funders, as Clare will go on about, if costed within funding proposal time, you could actually pay for the preservation of data. But there’s one thing that’s often forgotten and that’s the running and maintenance where somebody has set up a web service with their research data publicly facing web services. It’s the expectation to keep them running beyond the funded project. Which could be ten, could be to infinity basically. The upgrading of infrastructure of the software, and the maintenance that is, the sustainability going forward.
[00:23:06.000] — T
Because you may have someone costing in a member of staff who’s actually going to create the website, but then who maintains the website. And that hasn’t really been thought about at the costing stage.
[00:23:17.700] — M
That’s a big problem.
[00:23:18.930] — I
And do funders allow us to cost in these long term commitments? So the maintenance and if sometimes you have to pay to store something beyond the life of the project, are these things that funders allow us to potentially put into costings if we can quantify it in any way? Or is it just that they will pay for the actual storage over the life of the project and then after that, the onus is on the school?
[00:23:46.330] — M
Varies upon justification as well. Right. So to be able to have a good justification and cost it at the point of the live project.
[00:23:58.220] — I
Which is rather difficult to do, I imagine. But also this goes back to what you just said, that if we can support the proposal writing, this could really become something that we can do a bit better.
[00:24:08.420] — C
OK. So we talked quite a bit about funders so seamlessly going to move into my section, which is going to mainly talk about costing generally for research data management from the point of view of a selection of funders. So just to start off, there are no real set rules for costing research data management because every project has different needs and requirements when it comes to documentation, storage, and organising data and post-project archiving, as we’ve talked about. Some of the main points to bear in mind are activities related to data collection, planned data storage, data entry and transcription, data validation and documentation, and the cost of preparing data for archiving and reuse as well. And often high-cost activities can be things like transcribing and anonymising qualitative data and also cleaning and verifying quantitative data as well. And a lot of research funders have clarified the costs associated with data management and sharing are eligible and in grant proposals. But few projects routinely cost in support for fear of being uncompetitive. Several institutions have developed procedures to identify and address support requirements. And organisations such as LIBER, OpenAIRE and the UK Data Service provide guidance on costing. So it’s definitely worth looking those up. If you’re planning a research project, chances are that you would have written a data management plan, hopefully. They are mandatory, and if you need any support with your data management plan, you can get in touch with research services in the library and you can use the resources section of the data management plan and start thinking about and planning costing. And we will provide guidance on that if you do request a review. And we can give further information about what funders expect and suggest possible costing aspects, things you might not have thought about and we’ll also point you in the direction of the costing tool when it’s available, as talked about earlier. OK. So I have done some looking into a few of the key funders and I’m going to run through some of the key things that they say and feel free to jump in at any point. So firstly I looked at NIHR who have a list of the key questions that they want researchers to consider from the earliest stages of their project. So some of these questions are things like are the costs realistic? Is the research project value for money? Are you paying any patients or public that are involved in your project, will you need to pay for any of the other assistance or do you have enough staff? I think thinking about staff costs is quite a big one. Do members of the research team need training? And does this have any cost implications? And that includes specialist training as well. Have you considered the cost for any equipment, travel expenses, office supplies or these sorts of things that need thinking about? Also, whether you’ve taken into account the three main types of costs, such as research costs, NHS support costs and treatment costs in line with AcoRD? And have you allowed sufficient time for costing to be verified by the host institution finance office and the finance office of any collaborating partners as well?
[00:27:29.450] — T
Lots of things to think about.
[00:26:28.260] — I
NIHR are quite stringent with their regulations and their guidelines, but I think it just varies, doesn’t it? Because then you do also sometimes get the odd funders. The industry funders, for example, were very laid back. A lot to think about.
[00:27:46.340] — C
Yeah. And it’s worth checking whether the funder you’re working with is laid back or stringent as NIHR. So it’s worth being aware of these things. So the next one is the Health Research Board, and they raise some interesting points. Some of the things they want you to consider are things like, again, staff time. But on an hourly rate for things like data collection, data anonymisation, cleaning, preparing the data for publication, these are significant costs- in which case the staff member should be added under salaried personnel staff time per hourly rate for data stewardship, things like preparing and writing the data management plan, keeping the document up to date during the award, unless there are significant costs involved. Costs to access a secondary data set. A really interesting one that I thought was the verification of data produced or data reused during the project, which could be done by third-party service provider making data linkable, choosing the license, defining metadata for data sets, deploying and publishing verified data and relevant metadata and also deposit in a relevant repository. I think this is something that’s, maybe not taken into account and is something that comes up towards the end of the project that is sometimes not considered.
[00:29:03.330] — B
It’s something interesting that we see. I think that some publishers offer that as a service. So that final step of curation and making the data ready to be published alongside their output. I think it recognises the time and effort that goes into that. The other side of that coin is -when do people think about this the bid and grant stages, not something that’s always in their minds. We know it takes time and we know that the skills are not necessarily there. So it’s really interesting and we have a lot to think about.
[00:29:33.890] — M
It’s that curation piece that is always left last. But it’s also something that’s not widely realised that it can’t be costed in. So I think it’s more than dissemination or a communication piece of work. So people realise this is something that you can cost.
—
[00:29:59.150] — C
Absolutely
[00:30:00.060] — C
I think because it seems so far in the future that you’re going to be thinking about this sort of thing that a lot of people like you say doesn’t necessarily come into when they’re thinking about costing.
[00:30:12.360] — T
I think it’s amazing that it’s so detailed and they’ve listed everything that you can consider because you do get a lot of funding calls that are open to interpretation and can be quite vague and you’re just like, well, I guess if it hasn’t stated it, I’ll just apply for the standard things and hope that that will be enough for me to get the award. Whereas this is really, really listing out everything that you can apply for and what you should be considering. And I mean, if all the funding calls were like that, it would be a bit harder for the research support officer to like work through everything that you could potentially apply for. But knowing that you can and these sorts of services are something that you can consider and do exist is amazing.
[00:30:56.250] — I
It would be a dream even in terms of finance. Again, going back to what I said about the recovery rate, so many things that we’re probably just can claim, but because we don’t know, they’re not being applied for.
[00:31:06.710] — C
That’s it. So I think a lot of the time that when we search to put in their bid together, I think not everyone, but a lot of people are just focused on getting the bid and say they will maybe make it as low as possible. Actually a lot of funders, they want to know if it’s going to cost that much. And they want you to cost in as much as possible. So that’s covered, so that then at the end, you’re not looking for money that’s not necessarily there.
[00:31:34.160] — M
I was going to add that there are often limits on what you can apply for, most of those people are trying to get people of their projects are trying to do the research and that’s why often enough the research data management aspects are left on the sideline. Having to pick up from the other schools, etc.
[00:31:53.930] — T
It’s not a priority.
[00:31:55.350] — M
Exactly. You want to do the research? You want your team to do that research.
[00:31:59.920] — Everyone
Yeah.
[00:32:00.750] — C
But then you need the money to deal with that.
[00:32:03.400] — E
Yeah.
[00:32:04.010] — M
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because it’s small plot of money.
[00:32:07.190] — E
Exactly. Yeah.
[00:32:07.870] — M
Well, you want to look competitive as well. So there’s that other side of the coin.
[00:32:13.870] — C
So then there’s also, just finishing off the Health Research Board, there’s also cost to make the data open, which is obviously very topical at the moment and or to share the data. And then anonymisation cost for the depositing the data in an open access repository and then technical services such as cloud storage or domain hosting charge. So moving on to the Economic and Social Research Council, who are a part of UKRI. There’s only a little bit to talk about there, but I thought it was quite interesting what they say about how all costs associated with research, data management, the eligible expenditure of research, grant funds with the conditions that no expenditure could be double funded, a service that essentially supported by the indirect costs paid on all research grants cannot then be also included as a direct cost on a grant. All directly incurred expenditure of a grant must be incurred before the end date of the grant. So that’s what we were just talking about. Moving on to Wellcome Trust, so they interestingly have moved to talk about data management plans as output management plans. They commit to review and support the costs of output management plans as an integral part of the grant. And they say they’ll consider covering costing support for dedicated data managers or data scientists full or part-time and any data or software management training required by staff to deliver the proposed research. But they won’t consider occasional or routine support from institutional data managers or any other support staff. They say they’ll consider covering dedicated hardware or software required for the proposed research, cost to access supercomputers or shared facilities. But they won’t cover costs associated with routine data storage unless the data set is large and complex with requirements that exceed standard allowances. They say they will consider covering reasonable costs of operating managed data access mechanisms, costs of preparing data, software and materials for use, and costs of access, data, software and materials. They’ll consider covering ingestion or deposition costs for a recognised subject, repositories or collections, costs for unstructured repositories or institutional repositories. But they won’t cover estimated costs for curation and maintenance of data, code and materials beyond the lifetime of the grant, but will discuss how they can help on a case by case basis. And output management plans rarely directly itemise or request costs, making it extremely hard to identify all costs for output management plans for a particular grant, and Wellcome Trust say they’re committed to working with institutions to ensure they find a way to ensure costs are met in partnership. They say that costs will be highly variable grant to grant, but don’t believe a fixed percentage would be appropriate.
[00:35:06.330] — I
It’s very, very specific.
[00:35:10.430] — C
I have to mention this, that I didn’t find this from their website, this was from a contact at an event Wellcome Trust.
[00:35:18.840] — T
So basically, we won’t cover things that should be covered in your overheads, but we will cover special things that are above and beyond the standard norm and then anything outside of that, we’ll consider.
[00:35:31.770] — I
So it needs to really be quantified for them to even be able to consider it, which again, goes back to how difficult it can sometimes be to quantify those costs.
[00:35:41.380] — T
And especially if you’re thinking about the future. I mean, what if you had a grant that was 10 years, at the end? I have no idea how much that’s going to cost in 10 years time, all I can do is an estimate and if they’re not gonna cover estimated costs, then that’s quite… I mean, I can understand from them, but it’s challenging for the academic because they’re not always going to be applying to the Wellcome Trust.
[00:36:04.320] — T
So it’s setting one set of rules for one funder and then thinking about another set of rules for another funder and that can sometimes be confusing.
[00:36:13.160] — B
I think this is again, something where we, as the professional services or library or partners within the university, if we have those close connections with the researchers and with PIs, we can help then, to guide them through this kind of thing because these rules and standards are complex and sometimes difficult to apply. It’s only really if you’re building those connections with them, in many cases, a person will have that personal connection where we can actually talk to researchers about these considerations that we can help with. Because it’s difficult to expect any researcher to navigate through this on their own. That’s where we as partners in the university can add that value to the connections we have with them.
[00:36:59.430] — M
One thing as well, what we came up with was a pay once, store forever concrete methodology, buying storage beyond the final point of use provided by the university. So that will be something that can be costed in to support that 10 years beyond.
[00:37:21.300] — C
That’s really useful.
[00:37:22.560] — I
Because even if costs do change in 10 years time, based on what we initially costed, that is still some amount, that we are still able to recover and we can anticipate and build that buffer in as we do with a lot of our costings. We do build in buffers for inflation and things changing.
[00:37:40.690] — M
Prices of technology. That’s exactly what we’ve done in building the costing model.
[00:37:47.460] — T
It means they’re thinking about it, which is sometimes the hardest battle. Just to get people to consider these costs because you could potentially be requesting them and getting it covered by your funder rather than the school.
[00:38:04.000] — M
I’d like to add something else about the Wellcome Trust, we have been funded quite significantly in the past by Wellcome Trust to provide infrastructure.
[00:38:15.280] — B
Yeah, we have quite a big hardware storage solution through a kind of additional funding bids to the Wellcome Trust. That was something that was… I think we can talk about this. My colleagues at bioinformatics, they suffered because they didn’t have enough attached storage for particular instruments and machines. So they basically joined together as a group with research IT and with the faculty, IT team at the time to look at ways to address this and the way that we did it, is that we approached them with a proposed solution and then the Wellcome Trust was able to make funds available. So it’s a really good point, I think that you know, we think about this as an individual group, as an individual bid each time, but actually, if we are developing those relationships with the funders and with our partners in a way that keeps an eye on the availability of these additional funds. You know, in this case, it’s quite a substantial amount of money that was invested in providing this storage solution. And what that meant was that this particular group were able to work much more quickly with the computational facilities too, because it was attached to that as well and it was actually really successful. So, yeah, it was really good.
[00:39:32.100] — I
That’s true we do often find when funders do have a good relationship with the host institution, they are sometimes willing to, you know, go above and beyond because they know that the relationship is long-lasting and there’ll be more things that will come out of it and future grants and projects may benefit from these big investments that funders are sometimes are willing to do.
[00:39:52.510] — C
Well, that was everything that I had to say about funders, but I was just going to round off with some information about the Research Council’s UK guidance documents on common principles on data policy and responses to questions on funding that indicates that data management and sharing cost may be claimed subject to caveats. So to illustrate that and some of the key points where the direct costs must be incurred before the project and date to be fully auditable and justified in the case for support. Direct costs may include hardware, software, staff expenses, costs of preparing data and metadata for deposit. Post project costs could be claimed as a direct cost if it is invoiced before the project end, and including charges levied by repositories such as ‘pay once, store forever’. These would not be claimed if this is a Research Council-funded repository. Where data is destined for the Research Council-funded repository, the allowable direct costs would be limited to preparing the data for deposit and ingestion by that repository. Costs of long-term storage within such repositories should not be included. Guidance should be sought when costing any of the above to ensure compliance with funder terms. so that was just kind of like a summary of pretty much everything.
[00:41:12.490] — T
So this is going to be a stupid question, but do UKRI have their own data storage?
[00:41:23.050] — C
Yes, they have suggested data storage, more than their own. I don’t know exactly what that is, but I could send you further information about that. But yeah, they have recommended.
[00:41:39.910] — T
Because obviously you were saying that they won’t cover the costs for it to go into specific data storage, but they will do the work to get it ready. So I guess if they have…
[00:41:51.760] — C
So this is the Research Council’s UK guidance documents so they have funded repositories, so I’m not really sure what the difference may be in terms of whether it would just be like their recommended repositories. Do you know Bill?
[00:42:11.800] — B
There’s a lot of discipline-specific repositories out there. We are in the process of acquiring our own data repository for the university. Something that provides a very good flexible option for researchers who may not have considered a repository for the final data sets in the research. If we got an option to provide that from the university, there’d be a discussion if there was a huge amount of data going into it. But normally those data sets are not going to be gigantic. Then that is a very good option and that’s something that fits very well within the funder’s requirements in terms of providing that long term, safe, secure, preserved kind of option. Again, it’s hard, I suppose, to return to one of the things that many funders talk about, is that the data management plan, the output, is a living document and that all the way through research, researchers should be thinking about this, and we think, in the library particularly, want to maintain that active relationship with them so that we can remind them during the research that we can help with this stage and we have options for them in terms of preservation and publishing data. That’s what we’re developing all the time with the offers we’ve got in terms of training, technology and platforms, and that’s where we’re going to tell you next.
[00:43:29.600] — T
I think it’s great that there are some really good training opportunities for staff. I think making the support staff more aware. I mean, communication channels in most institutions, I’m sure, are always hit and miss. You’ll grab the attention of some people, a certain cohort, but you won’t another. But I guess it’s finding what works well for the different types of research support staff and, I don’t know, not that I’d want to, but I guess not making things mandatory, but making it part of an induction program. And I think that’s something, again, with the research lifecycle program, all these individual projects are picking up lots of these different things and I know that there will be projects coming up in the future about training and consistency throughout the faculties and making sure that people are getting the right training and the right inductions when they first start in their new role, so they feel confident. So people know what to cost, they understand that these services exist, where to go and who to speak to and to not feel nervous about asking questions. People do feel a bit nervous, they’re like, I don’t want to speak to that person, maybe I had a bad experience in my past job or something like that, or I didn’t actually get the right information, I don’t want to ask them again because I might sound stupid.
[00:44:50.840] — I
Yeah, it’s all about embedding best practices as soon as possible. Like we mentioned or it’s also about building that relationship with the academics. And if you have that relationship and you’re seeing those people quite often, even if they’re confused or they’re getting confused between funders. That’s something we can set straight without them taking it as us saying, no, you can’t do that. They might just think, OK, well, they’re pointing me in the right direction. But yeah, I definitely agree. It’s something that she definitely picked up at the induction stage.
[00:45:21.920] — T
Any type of new starter who’s working your research, really? You know, support staff, but also new PGRs and early career researchers just making sure that they know where to find this information and that there are people who are actually really happy to help. You know, you do speak to a lot of people in these little cohorts of support and you’ll always find someone who’s really passionate or just really, really good at their job and really happy to help. So finding those people is always such a bonus because you’re like ‘I know they’re there and they’re really going to help me and I’m going to get the information that I need.’
[00:45:54.710] — I
It becomes the person you kind of go-to throughout your life at the organisation.
[00:46:02.270] — T
Then it becomes a bit more of a positive kind of experience rather than ‘I have jumped through all of these hoops to get my research and then more hoops because I have data and then post-project, I have all these requirements that I have to fulfil and I don’t know what I’m doing and along the way, there are different support staff who help me along the way, but it’s not like they are consistent throughout my life cycles.’ Different people in different services. And you can’t have one for everything. But it’s just finding those links and finding that kind of support and I’m hoping to make people aware of these sorts of services with a podcast and getting us together. It really does help.
[00:46:46.200] — C
It does, I think. I mean, I hope this will be useful for anyone that listens to it. I think it’s also been a really useful exercise for us to have these conversations and our initial conversation was really, really helpful.
[00:46:59.150] — I
I came out of it like ‘Oh, my goodness. I did not realise there was so much because we only ever see it on the finance side of things. We didn’t realise that it’s so much bigger.’
[00:47:11.660] — T
And also thinking about, with this new costing tool, taking advantage of embedding a new system and training is going to happen. So take advantage of that training because people will have to learn something new. So let’s just put all this information in while we can. So it’s there and ready to go.
[00:47:31.130] — C
Absolutely.
[00:47:32.000] — I
I think people only struggle when they know something different and they can say ‘you know, back five years ago, we used to be able to do this’. But hopefully with the new costing tool and the new system, even though they may be able to say about pFACT, at the end of the day this is what we’ve got now, this is how it’s going to be and this is everything that we’re gonna do from the very beginning and then they’re never gonna be able to say, well, when BlackDackel came in, we did this.
[00:47:56.180] — I
And now we’re doing this.
[00:47:58.520] — T
No, you didn’t. You costed all your lovely research data storage right from the start.
[00:48:06.970] — C
Well, I think that’s maybe rounds everything up and brings it quite neatly, back round to the costing tool, which kind of underpins this whole conversation. So thank you for listening, for any more information you can email the Library’s Research Data Management Team, rather than giving you lots of different email addresses, and we’ll point you in the direction of anything that you need to know. Thank you.
Please note: minor changes have been made to this transcript for accessibility
