Due to the guidelines of the research funders, universities will need policies that regulate the handling of research data. We have set ourselves the goal that a proposal for a research data management policy has been developed at the end of the project in all partner institutions.

The "Toolkit of Best Practice for Research Data Management" co-developed in the project LEARN of the University of Vienna serves as the basis for this work package. As a first step, the toolkit will be supplemented with aspects that are not yet included - especially requirements of the medical universities and the art universities. Working groups at each partner institution then create a research data management policy together with their respective local stakeholders and in exchange with each other.

A total of 21 "Understanding Policies" workshops were organized to assist in the creation and introduction of a policy of research data management (RDM Policy) at Austrian universities for decision-makers at the vice-rectorate level (Vicerectorate for Research or Infrastructure), research support facilities such as libraries, IT services, research services, legal departments , Repository managers, works councils, selected representatives from the human resources department, data protection officers, ethics committee, individual scientists in management positions. In addition, ongoing consultations are carried out.

Policies have so far been adopted at five Austrian universities and such regulations are in progress at nine other locations.

As a basis, the developed policy was also used for the following Italian and German research institutions: