RDM Policies

• The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or Algemene Verordening Gegevensbescherming (AVG) is European legislation that regulates the privacy protection of natural persons from Europe in the processing and transfer of personal data in Europe. 
• See the GDPR-LibGuide for more details and the Data Protection Impact Assessment tool.
• Each faculty has one or more privacy champions. Privacy champions are the first persons to contact about concerns or questions about privacy and the GDPR.
  

• The reporting of data breaches concerning personal data is covered in the GDPR. Read more about dataleaks and other security incidents on this page. 
• (Suspicion of) data security breaches have to be reported to the IT service desk as soon as possible. VU policy on reporting data breaches can be found here. 
• See the Policies & Regulations LibGuide for more details.
  

Under the GDPR, organizations like the VU and VUmc are obliged to keep a central record of processing activities carried out in the organization, including personal data used in scientific research. 

• If your research involves processing personal data, this needs to be registered in VU's record of processing activities. 
• Faculty privacy champions can help you register personal data in the VU's record of processing activities. 
• Detailed information can be found on the GDPR-LibGuide.
  

The Medial Research Act is to offer test subjects proper legal protection. Research that falls under the scope of the WMO must first be tested by a recognised Medical Ethics Assessment Committee.
You have to comply with WMO when

• Medical research is carried out;
• The subjects are subjected to actions and/or they are subjected to a certain behavior.

RDM Policy

For faculty policies & regulations, please click here.

Dutch scientists are required to comply with the Netherlands code of conduct for research integrity (VSNU, 2018). The principles of proper scientific and scholarly research, according to the code of conduct are:

• Honesty
• Scrupulousness
• Transparency
• Independence
• Responsibility

To live up to these general principles, the code of conduct provides standards which are addressed in a DMP, for good research practices related to data management.

The Collective labour agreement of Dutch Universities is a collective agreement about employment conditions. A number of articles from the CAO are (indirectly) important for research data:

• Article 1.17 Liability and compensation
  1. An employee who, in the performance of his duties, causes damage to the institution or to a third party to whom the institution is obliged to pay compensation for that damage shall not be held liable for this, unless the damage was caused deliberately or was a result of conscious recklessness.
  A 'leak' of privacy-sensitive data may be considered as damage in such cases.
• Article 1.19 Employees’ obligations pursuant to third-party agreements
  If rules have been set up pertaining to agreements between the university and third parties, an employee who participates in the implementation of such an agreement is obliged to behave in accordance with both the rules and the substance of the agreement in question.
  Contracts with financiers or companies that make demands on the use of the research data may be applicable here. 

The guide 'The legal status of raw data: a guide for research practice' was produced for SURFdirect, SURF’s digital rights Expertise Community for higher education, by the Centre for Intellectual Property Law (CIER).

Accurate data collection is essential to maintaining the integrity of research.
See the data collection LibGuide for data collection protocols the VU recommends.

When research involves human participants or animals, a research proposal may need to be reviewed by an ethics committee.
Find an overview of the different committees in the VU in the policies & regulations LibGuide.