Research data management - FAQ

Regardless of where the data is stored and regardless of the storage service, any data created or modified during your collaboration with UNIL is protected by copyright but belongs to UNIL. This means that for any use other than scientific and academic purposes, a special agreement of UNIL's Management is required (e.g. for commercialization).

Based on UNIL’s rugulations (Art. 70-72 LUL), we would like to clarify a few practical points related to data::

If in doubt, please contact UNIL's Legal Department. 

UNIL encourages employees to save all work-related data generated during their collaboration with UNIL on the University's institutional infrastructure (Directive 4.5 Art. 8 al. 2). To this end, the UNIL Central IT Services (Ci) provides a NAS storage server.

The UNIL Isilon NAS server is a secure and robust storage service that guarantees the security and durability of your work data. This network storage server is available to all collaborator under contract with UNIL and offers a high level of availability. It is divided into two separate tree structures – research and administrative – which allow data to be organized according to its nature.

Since June 2019, the UNIL IT Center has strengthened its services dedicated to research at the University by creating the Scientific Computing and Research Support Unit (DCSR). This unit is responsible for advising researchers and providing them with new infrastructure for storing and processing research data.

The DCSR NAS server (nasdcsr.unil.ch\RECHERCHE) is dedicated to storing research data organized by project for each Principal Investigator (PI). HPC infrastructure enables researchers to perform scientific computing.

To benefit from these resources, PIs must complete the DCSR application form and submit a Data Management Plan (DMP) when requesting storage space for a research project.

These services are subject to a fee and their use is billed to PIs by the UNIL IT Center.

The use of cloud services must comply with UNIL's legal requirements and data protection. Furthermore, any use of these services is the sole responsibility of the user, who assumes full responsibility for the risks involved, knowing that no assistance is offered on our part.

The University authorises the transfer of non-sensitive research data via OneDrive (Microsoft 365 Cloud in Switzerland, encrypted using Unil encryption keys) solely for the duration of the collaborative editing process. The data must then be deleted from Microsoft 365 and moved to the DCSR’s research data storage service (NAS). 

In order to guarantee free access to research data for the scientific community and the public, the SNSF is gradually implementing new measures for project submissions. Since October 2017, each project must be accompanied by a Data Management Plan (DMP), but since April 2023 it is no longer mandatory to submit it at the same time as the funding application.

Created in 2024, the Data Stewardship Biomed Unit (DSBU) offers UNIL and CHUV researchers comprehensive and personalized support to help them manage, share, and store their data. This unit, located both on the Dorigny and Epalinges campus,  is the point of contact at the FBM for all matters relating to the DMP and data stewardship in general. 

To facilitate the drafting of DMP, the tool now recommended by the faculty is the Data Stewardship Wizard (DSW), which is developed and maintained by the European ELIXIR-CONVERGE network.

Free training sessions are regularly organised by the DSBU and cover various topics such as the drafting and proofreading of DMPs, Open Data and long-term storage (LTS) at the University of Lausanne.

Nowadays, the use of computerised tools to manage samples and laboratory workflows has become essential. However, the solutions available on the market are often expensive and can be difficult to implement (due to legal and logistical considerations).

At the FBM, in view of the growing interest among laboratories in this type of tool, at its meeting on May 16, 2018, the Dean's Office decided to give researchers free choice of their electronic laboratory notebook system, provided that the data remains within the University.

With this in mind, the Data Stewardship Biomed Unit (DSBU) has developed the DataSquid tool, which automates the documentation of data sets to facilitate the reproducibility of experiments and workflows. This solution can be configured to suit the specific needs of different laboratories. To access it, you must first contact the DSBU, which will provide guidance on its use alongside training sessions for all laboratory members. 

The Scientific Computing and Research Support Unit (DCSR) of the UNIL IT Central Services (Ci) provides a transfer tool for sending data to internal or external UNIL collaborators.

The SWITCHFileSender web application also allows you to send files of up to 300GB to a list of recipients of your choice and to invite users to use the service.

After publication, data produced in the course of research must be stored securely for at least 10 years (Directive de la Direction 4.2, Art. 2.4). Responsibility for the appropriate storage of data lies with the research project leader.

Archiving data at the end of a research project is a significant challenge and often a time-consuming task. To assist researchers with these procedures, the Data Stewardship Biomed Unit (DSBU) provides personalised support and a tool to organise data in preparation for its transfer to long-term storage.

The FBM Dean’s Office has issued an official statement recommending best practices for data sharing on appropriate repositories and for local archiving within institutional infrastructures. 

Due to the highly sensitive nature of the information used for medical research, security and data protection requirements differ between UNIL and CHUV. In general, the latter is more restrictive (access, encryption, etc.).

The DCSR NAS server is intended to store data from research carried out at UNIL. CHUV employees who are linked to UNIL through their scientific activities may nevertheless request access to this infrastructure. All requests for access to a group directory on the NASDCSR storage space are managed by the PI. In addition, non-UNIL personnel must request a UNIL IT account in order to obtain such access.

For the transfer of large files between the two institutions, CHUV has set up its own secure system: Filecare. You will find additional information about this tool in the IT section of the CHUV intranet. If you have any questions regarding the data security requirements of CHUV, please contact their IT support at service.desk@chuv.ch.