Data Management from Scratch: Establishing a New Data Management Program at Harvard University

With the exponential growth of research data driven by technological advancement, comes the increased need for greater expertise on how to better manage, organize, store and share research data. But what is the best strategy for setting up a new Research Data Management program at your university? This presentation will discuss how the Research Computing group at Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences established and developed a new Research Data Management program in the spring of 2024. We will examine how a community survey sent to faculty, researchers, and staff helped inform the group's greatest gaps and needs and helped to define the immediate and long-term priorities for the program. We will then outline some of the challenges we've since experienced, including a backlog of inactive data storage, new federal regulations and guidelines around data retention, and the introduction and adoption of data management concepts and policies both internally with colleagues and externally with faculty and staff. Finally, we will highlight future plans for the program, including increased documentation and data visualization tools, potential team growth, and a greater cohesion and collaboration with other groups across the campus (IT, Library, Departments).