Tri-agency Data Deposit and Retention requirement

Presentation about the upcoming implementation of the Tri-agency Data Deposit and Retention requirement with Dominique Roche, Senior Policy Advisor and Chair, Tri-Agency RDM Working Group at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Launched in March 2021, the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy includes a requirement that Grant recipients “deposit into a digital repository all digital research data, metadata and code that directly support the research conclusions in journal publications and pre-prints that arise from agency-supported research.” The agencies committed to phase-in the data deposit requirement after reviewing institutional RDM strategies and in line with the readiness of the Canadian research community.

Following extensive engagement with researchers, partners, and other interest-holders, the agencies released a What We Heard report in July 2025. A cross-sectional study commissioned by the agencies mapping over 200 institutional RDM strategies also provided further insight into national readiness for data deposit.

Overall, members of the research community expressed broad support for making explicit the principle that publicly funded research data should be “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”; however, participants also emphasized the need to clarify several aspects of the data deposit requirement to facilitate implementation. Based on these findings, the Agencies have developed an implementation approach for the data deposit requirement, which:

clarifies the aims of the requirement and important terminology;
distinguishes requirements for data retention, data deposit, and data availability;
aligns with the policies of other major funding agencies and the principle that publicly funded research data should be “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”;
provides clear minimum expectations and guidance on key aspects of the requirement;
considers the challenges of depositing and making research code available, as well as applying the FAIR principles to the research code in the context of the current Canadian research landscape; and
respects a researcher’s priority of access to the data they created by allowing reasonable embargoes on data availability.

Presentation by Dom Roche. Dom is a senior policy advisor at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), where he leads SSHRC’s policy work on research data management and sharing. Dom holds a PhD from the Australian National University and has a solid track record of research in metascience and open science practices. He chairs the Tri-Agency working group responsible for implementing the Tri-Agency Research Data Management (RDM) Policy and leads the implementation of the Policy’s Data Deposit Requirement. Dom Roche est conseiller principal en politiques au Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada (CRSH), où il dirige les travaux du CRSH en matière de gestion et de partage des données de recherche. Dominique est titulaire d’un doctorat de l’Australian National University et a mené de nombreuses recherches dans les domaines de la métascience et de la science ouverte. Il préside le groupe de travail inter-organismes chargé de la mise en œuvre de la Politique de gestion des données de recherche des trois organismes et dirige la mise en œuvre de l’exigence de dépôt des données prévue par cette politique. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3326-864X

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Workshop recording

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Workshop slides

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Resources referenced during the presentation:

Tri-Agency Data Deposit Documents

Previous session recordings

View recordings of earlier sessions of this workshop:

November 24, 2022 - RDM Strategy Presentation by Matthew Lucas, SSHRC Recording and Slides
December 13th 2021 Recording and Slides