This protocol applies to all researchers within the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences with temporary or permanent contracts, including PhD candidates and Research Master’s students. It does not apply to research conducted by Bachelor’s and one-year Master’s students, as their research is the responsibility of their supervisors.

The protocol covers:

1. 1. Data collected and archived by external organizations (e.g., Statistics Netherlands, European Social Survey).
   2. Survey and other data collected by researchers or commissioned by external organizations.
   3. Data collected for experimental research.
   4. Data collected for qualitative research (e.g., open interviews, observations).

Raw data must be stored for a minimum of ten years after publication, following VSNU and APA guidelines. Data subject to the WMO must be stored for at least 15 years according to the Medical Treatment Agreement Act.

There is no maximum storage duration for anonymized raw data. Data traceable to individuals may only be stored as long as necessary for research purposes and must be destroyed once those purposes are achieved, except in cases of follow-up or longitudinal studies.

Anonymized raw data should be stored on the faculty server, meeting security, robustness, and automatic backup requirements. Data traceable to individuals should be stored on the O-drive, separately from raw data. External storage in national or international archives like DANS is recommended and sometimes compulsory.

Researchers must store data on faculty servers and not on private hard drives, USBs, or cloud services like Dropbox. Data should be archived to ensure continuity after an employee leaves the faculty. Researchers using external data must ensure it meets faculty protocol requirements.

A data package must include:

1. 1. Description of hypothesis, research design, conceptual framework, and methods.
   2. Instructions, procedures, and materials needed for replication.
   3. Raw data files.
   4. Computer code for data processing and analysis.
   5. Final analysis data files.
   6. Computer code for obtaining manuscript results.
   7. A Readme file with detailed information about the data package.

The first author of a publication at the faculty is responsible for data storage. If the first author is external, a faculty author must ensure proper storage. For PhD candidates and Research Master’s students, their supervisors are responsible, although they may delegate this for educational purposes.

The data package should be delivered shortly after the manuscript’s final acceptance, with the accepted version and final publication added later.

Primary responsibility lies with the researcher. Supervisors are responsible for their PhD candidates and Research Master’s students. The final responsibility rests with the chairholder under which a publication falls, and the dean of the faculty has formal responsibility. Compliance is monitored through Assessment & Development interviews.