Opportunity for researcher input on new NIH DMS Plan templates

We are writing to let the research community know there are two new templates that can be used to create NIH Data management and Sharing (DMS) Plans that are in DMPTool. NIH plans to implement one of these templates across all NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices (ICOs) sometime next year.

Background:

Columbia University is a member of the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP), an association of universities, research institutions, and federal agencies collaborating together to examine ways to reduce administrative burden associated with the management of federally funded sponsored projects.

The FDP, in collaboration with NIH, is currently conducting a pilot (aka, the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot) to test the two new NIH DMS Plan templates and seeks researcher input.

The goal of the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot is to:

• Save time for researchers to complete their DMS Plans by providing templates with clear fields and instructions;
• Reduce time to finalize the DMS Plan during Just-in-Time (JIT), which in turn, reduces time to the issuance of a Notice of Award; and
• Promote standardization of the information collected in DMS Plans that meet the needs of the different NIH ICOs, therefore, preventing significant variations in ICO-specific requirements.

At the end of the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot, the NIH will select a template(s) and this pilot aims to inform the final template(s). Researchers have the opportunity now to inform what the future template will be.

The two NIH DMS Plan templates:

NIH will accept either of the two pilot templates, or the standard NIH DMS Plan format in grant applications requiring a DMS Plan. The two pilot templates are available in DMPTool, or the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot webpage and are available for anyone to use.

If downloading the templates from the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot webpage, the options are:

• FDP Pilot Template Alpha - a prescriptive, fillable PDF template designed to limit the need for free text entry.
  • Note – when downloading the Alpha template from the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot webpage, the template will not open in a web browser; it must be downloaded and opened in a licensed version of Adobe (cannot use the free version of Adobe). 
• FDP Pilot Template Bravo – a Word doc which aims to provide detailed prompts as well as more options to include free text responses as necessary.

If using DMPTool, both of these templates, as well as the general NIH DMS Plan format (labeled as the NIH-GEN DSMP (2003)) are available for use. No need to obtain the licensed version of Adobe.

Providing feedback to NIH:

If using either the Alpha or Bravo templates, please provide feedback to NIH. Simply complete this short survey.

Questions:

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach us at [email protected]. For more Columbia-specific resources and FAQs on the NIH DMS Policy, see Columbia’s NIH Policy on Data Management and Sharing Plan (2023) webpage.