BEAR offers and continues to develop a set of storage services to meet the needs of the University’s research community. These services are underpinned by the institutional commitment to ‘make available, at a cost if appropriate, mechanisms and services for funder-compliant storage, backup, registration, deposit and retention of Research Data assets in support of current and future access, during and after completion of research projects’ - see the University’s Research Data Management Policy.
Research Data Store (RDS) for working data
The University has invested in a central Research Data Store (RDS) which provides an integrated and secure service, available to researchers from all disciplines to store working data cost-effectively and link it efficiently to all BEAR services. On request, a default allocation of up to 3TB of space per project for 5 years will be allocated to the Principle Investigator (PI), funded by the University for the duration of the project (whichever is the shorter). To facilitate large data transfers we provide BEAR Data Transfer.
Guidance for Research Grant Applications
Storage space in excess of the default may be purchased by Research Groups, funded from research grants or other income. The Research Data Storage Costs and Guidance for Research Grant Applications page has more information about the costs, which is particularly important for inclusion in funding bids.
Storage for BlueBEAR & BEAR Cloud
The main storage for our supercomputer, BlueBEAR and BEAR Cloud Virtual Machines is provided via the Research Data Store - user home directories are restricted to 20GB and should not be used for storing active research data.
Open Data - UBIRA eData repository
At the end of a research project, research data should be shared and stored preferably in a suitable subject/funder repository (see advice from the Library) to aid discovery or if none is available, through the University UBIRA eData repository run by Library Services. The eData repository allocates a permanent identifier for your dataset (a Digital Object Identifier [DOI]), which you can cite in publications making your data openly available to other researchers.
BEAR Archive for archiving data
We provide the BEAR Archive (formerly known as the Research Data Archive) to store valuable data associated with your research project, either current or completed. Data stored in the BEAR Archive may be needed in the future but is not currently being actively used, accessed or processed and is not needed to support a publication. Data will be archived to tape for a reasonable length of time, with the minimum period agreed at the point of archiving with the PI and will only be accessible upon an application for restoration by an appropriate person.
Governance policies
Governance policies for the Research Data Store and BEAR Archive are available here.
FAQ and Contact Us
A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list can be viewed here, however, if you do not find the information you require please do not hesitate in contacting us.