Funders are requiring that the results of funded research is archived and available for future researchers to use and build on. This includes any outputs and data and it also includes any websites you create to disseminate your project or collect data through interactive features.

Your application for research funding will include a research data management plan. Long term storage and sharing of research data is not solely about disseminating your data on the project web site. You must also describe the recognised data repository where you will archive your data according to FAIR data principles.

There are 3 steps that you need to be aware of in ensuring the long term availability of your work:

1. Keeping the web site on research.kent

The University of Kent will host your web site for ten years after your project starts. After that, the site and its content will not be available. However, before you close your project you need to archive it.

2. Archiving your web site

To enable your web site to continue to be visited and used after this time, you need to archive it. You will need to archive your site as soon as you have finished adding to it and its contents will remain the same. Web archives keep a snap shot of the site, so any interactive features, like searches or feedback forms, will not function. We recommend UK Web Archive as a reliable web archiving service. You just need to nominate your site and the team will harvest it. See our blog post for detailed information about how to design your site for effective archiving.

3. Archiving the files that make up your web site and its content

You should also archive the contents of the site including any background files or embedded content that makes up the site itself. You can archive these files using the Kent Data Repository - KDR or any other suitable research data repository - see our web pages for more information about research data repositories.