Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A completed NIH-funded dataset is deposited in a domain repository and registered with a DOI during the archive phase, satisfying the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy.
- Is an instance
A project's financial records are retained for three years from the date its final financial report was submitted, per 2 CFR 200.334, as part of routine archive-phase compliance.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Submitting the final technical and financial reports themselves is a closeout-phase activity, not archive -- archive begins only once that closeout reporting is already complete.
Editorial commentary
The archive phase begins once closeout reporting is complete — it is not part of closeout itself, but what follows it. Its purpose is long-term stewardship of everything the project produced: research data, code, final documents, and the records of what happened to any equipment purchased on the award.
What gets archived, and where
Typical archive-phase activity includes depositing research data in a domain repository, institutional repository, or FAIR-aligned data service; depositing code (Zenodo, an archived GitHub release with a DOI, an institutional software repository); preserving final documents (final technical/financial reports, the signed Grant Agreement, correspondence) in the institution’s records system; and registering datasets and other outputs with persistent identifiers (DOIs) so they remain citable and findable independent of where they are hosted. Funder data-sharing policies — the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy, Horizon Europe’s Open Research Data expectations — set the baseline for what must be deposited and how openly.
How long records actually have to be kept
For US federal awards, the baseline retention period for financial records, supporting documentation, and statistical records is three years from the date the final financial report is submitted, under 2 CFR 200.334 — not the seven-to-ten-year figure sometimes assumed by analogy to other compliance regimes. That three-year clock resets if litigation, a claim, or an audit involving the records starts before it expires (records must then be kept until the matter is fully resolved), and it runs separately — three years from the end of the fiscal year the income was earned — for records tied to post-project program income. Equipment purchased on the award follows its own rule: property records must be kept three years after final disposition of the equipment, regardless of the general financial-record clock. Data retention expectations under a funder’s data-sharing policy, or an institution’s own research-integrity record-retention policy, are separate from this financial-records clock and can run longer — there is no single number covering both; check the applicable funder and institutional policy for the specific output in question.
Where it sits in the lifecycle
Archive is the last stage in the project lifecycle sequence, reached by a final hand-off from closeout. Unlike every earlier phase, it has no defined end date of its own — it is an ongoing stewardship obligation that continues for as long as the applicable retention period requires, not a bounded activity with its own closeout.
References
- 2 CFR 200.334 (Record retention requirements) — Uniform Guidance, WebSearch-corroborated against eCFR/Cornell LII, cache-verified 2026-07-10; NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy (2023); Horizon Europe Open Research Data guidance.
Also known as
Preservation phase · Post-closeout archival · Long-term archive phase
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Archive phase"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/archive-phase" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/archive-phase",
"name": "Archive phase",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/archive-phase",
"description": "The final lifecycle stage, beginning once closeout reporting is complete, in which a project's outputs -- data, code, documents, and equipment records -- are placed into long-term stewardship: deposited in repositories, registered with persistent identifiers, and retained for whatever period funder policy and 2 CFR 200.334 require. It formalises what happens to a project's outputs after the award itself has formally ended.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-lifecycle#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/archive-phase",
"sameAs": [
"Preservation phase",
"Post-closeout archival",
"Long-term archive phase"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:23:00",
"dateModified": "2026-08-22T19:42:59",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
