1. The Wellcome Trust–DBT India Alliance (the ‘Alliance’) wishes to ensure that the outputs of the research it funds, including research data, are managed and used in ways that maximise public benefit. The Alliance considers that the benefits gained from research data will be maximised when they are made widely available to the research community as soon as feasible, so that they can be verified, built upon and used to advance knowledge.
2. The guiding principles underlying the Alliance Grant Conditions are that:
- research funded by the Alliance is charitable in nature (i.e. gives adequate public benefit with only incidental private benefit) and is not constrained by commercial or other interests of the researcher
- discoveries, inventions and other knowledge arising from Alliance-funded research are made freely available to the wider scientific community (publication can reasonably be delayed to allow for protection of any intellectual property).
3. In support of this position the Alliance expects its grantholders to maximise the availability of research data with as few restrictions as possible.
4. Therefore, the Alliance regards it as good research practice for all researchers to consider at the research proposal stage how they will manage and share the data they will generate.
5. In specific cases where applications for Alliance funding involve the creation or development of a resource for the research community as the primary goal, or involve the generation of a significant quantity of data that could potentially be shared for added benefit, the Alliance will:
- require that the applicants provide a data management and sharing plan as part of their application
- review these data management and sharing plans, including any costs involved in delivering them, as an integral part of the funding decision.
6. In addition to the responsibilities of those generating data, the Alliance believes that data sharing for the benefit of the research community as a whole will only proceed if those using the data also adopt good research practice. In recognition of the contribution of the researchers and teams generating data, the Alliance expects all users of data to acknowledge the sources of their data and abide by the terms and conditions under which they accessed the original data.
