Preamble

The traceability of research is a central component of good scientific practice The sustainable securing and provision of research data contributes to the traceability and quality of scientific work and opens up important follow-up possibilities for further research.

The responsible handling of research data is laid down in the "TUHH Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice". To shape these guidelines and the handling of research data in general, the TU Hamburg has adopted the following specific guidelines for handling research data.

What is research data?

Research data are all data that are collected, observed, derived, simulated or otherwise generated in connection with research. Research data occur in every scientific discipline in different forms and formats.

Guidelines

1. Responsible research goes hand in hand with the conscious and careful handling of research data throughout its life cycle. Research data management includes the planning, acquisition, processing, documentation, publication and long-term storage of data.
2. Responsibility for research data management lies with the project leaders and independent researchers. The scientific working units (e.g. institute or working group) can define binding rules for their area of responsibility.
3. For projects involving research data, a "data management plan" should be drawn up as early as possible in the project conception or application process. This plan should document the handling of research data and be oriented towards general and subject-specific guidelines (e.g. of funding agencies or professional societies). If possible and reasonable, the researchers involved in a research project should make documented agreements as early as possible on who is authorised to access and use the research data. In particular, those who collect the research data are entitled to use it.
4. The TU Hamburg supports the scientists in research data management (e.g. through the computer centre and library). It offers advice on developing concepts and support with research data management tools. For this, early contact is recommended.
5. The TU Hamburg has a basic research data infrastructure for storing, versioning and making data available. In particular, the GitLab installation (https://collaborating.tuhh.de) is available for collaborative work on data and its versioning, and TUHH Open Research (https://tore.tuhh.de/) for publication and long-term archiving.
6. The data, their context of origin and the tools used are documented to enable traceability and subsequent use.
7. The TU Hamburg promotes and supports free access to research data (Open Access). The decision to publish and the legal conditions for doing so are the responsibility of the scientists themselves. The protection of personal data, ethical and copyright concerns, obligations towards third parties and exploitation interests should be taken into account in a balanced manner. For publication, the use of a Creative Commons licence Public Domain Licence (CC 0) or Attribution (CC BY) is recommended.
8. Research data on which a publication is based should be stored in a recognised repository or archiving system, provided with a persistent identifier (DOI) and metadata in accordance with the FAIR principles ("Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable") and, if possible, made openly accessible.