Research & Security

If you are a School of Medicine researcher applying for a grant (from NIH, for example), IRT Information Security Services is here to help you. It is extremely important that medical data be kept properly secured, and having a solid and properly-audited security plan, approved by a University IT official, is necessary for most grant funding. During the grant writing process, we can review your data security plan or help you create one based on your data usage needs. Once your grant proposal is accepted, we can then help you implement the computer security steps outlined in your plan.

Computer security has fixed costs associated with it; to accurately assess your project's funding needs, you should build those expenses into the initial grant proposal. For example, you might need to buy a server and/or host a server in the IRT data center, which has fixed monthly costs. If your project needs a dedicated server, all associated costs are in addition to the regular tech support you receive as part of the university, and would therefore likely affect your facilities, administration, or equipment budget.

Stanford now has an online hub for all on-campus researchers, with a wide range of resources, procedures, and answers: http://doresearch.stanford.edu

More information about grants and data management:

• Questions to ask as you prepare a grant proposal: http://it4research.stanford.edu
  A resource compiled by Stanford's IT communities to help you identify your computing needs, as you prepare your research project.
• Lane Library: http://lane.stanford.edu/about/grantwriters.html
  Lane has a page of resources related to grant writing in general.
• Clinical Informatics: https://clinicalinformatics.stanford.edu/services/datamanage.html
  Their site has information about Stanford-approved data management tools, such as secure and HIPAA-approved databases.
• Research Management Group (RMG): http://med.stanford.edu/rmg/funding/
  RMG keeps a list of funding opportunities and resources.

More help and information about creating data management plans for research grant proposals, brought to you from other universities and resources:

• MIT: Data Management Plans
  A page with recommendations and resources, including examples of data management plans from various disciplines, and a data management checklist.
• University of Wisconsin: Research Data Services
  More data management resources, including a concise list of data plan essentials.
• University of Massachusetts: Data Management Planning
  A large list of data management resources.
  
• LTER (Long Term Ecological Research Network):How to Write a Data Management Plan for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Proposal
  A 2011 article geared towards NSF proposals, but the outline for a data management plan is still useful.
• University of Idaho: NSF Data Management Plan
  Another explanation of writing a plan for an NSF grant, including definitions of different kinds of data.