Roles and responsibilities in data-sharing
Study directors or principal investigator, data requesters and the MRC each play a role in enabling the sharing of research data.
Study Director / Principal Investigator
Director in this guidance refers to the person with overall responsibility for an entire study, which may comprise several research programmes or projects, each with their own lead scientist. Principal Investigator refers to the person responsible for a research grant funded programme or project involving data collection and analysis.
The roles of a Director or Principal Investigator includes the following:
- As a scientist and principal investigator leading an MRC-approved research programme, they have overall responsibility to their funder(s) and employer for delivering and responsibly communicating high quality research outcomes, and for good research conduct, in accordance with MRC Terms and Conditions
- If the custodian of the cohort, they are responsible for sustaining the goodwill and participation of cohort participants and, in that regard, for safeguarding the reputation of the study and ensuring confidentiality in accordance with ethical and legal requirements
- As custodian of the research data, they are responsible for making best use of the participants’ data, including through sharing, and for the integrity, security and quality of research data management, in accordance with institutional policies and recognised data standards
- As a senior manager, they are responsible for sound policies, systems and processes for deploying and managing study resources and funding – balancing the requirements of the research, the cohort and the data
- As a leader, they are responsible for innovation and improvement, both in their research and in the management and sharing of valuable research resources.
Data Requester
The data requester and new user responsibilities include:
- As a scientist, to make best use of the data entrusted to them, delivering and responsibly communicating high quality research outcomes, according to good research practice and the policies of their own institution and funder
- To respect the interests of the cohort participants, recognising their gift of personal data, the dependency of the study now and for the future on the goodwill of the participants, and respecting their wishes for use of the data, e.g. regarding confidentiality
- To ensure the integrity, security and quality of information entrusted to them, and of data they then derive, equivalent to those under which the source data are held and in accordance with MRC policies and recognised data standards
- To respect the data-sharing agreement(s) they have entered into as a secondary user and/or collaborator
- To properly acknowledge the original of the data and the significant contribution of various parties towards their creation.
In terms of research conduct, the responsibilities of the requester and secondary user are, in principle, the same as those of the study director.
MRC
The MRC’s responsibilities include:
- Promoting high quality collaborative research and associated data-sharing
- Setting, promoting and reviewing policy and guidance, working with other organisations to achieve harmonisation
- Promoting the development, validation and implementation of appropriate data standards
- Auditing data-sharing study policies and practices by MRC-funded studies
- Enabling the visibility of rich data resources (through the Data Support Service project)
- Promoting professional development of MRC data managers and enabling sharing of best practice
- Compiling and reviewing evaluative data