Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A 4-page PDF submitted alongside a grant application that responds to each section of the funder template.
- Is an instance
The 'human-readable export' option in a DMP tool.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
An RDA-CS JSON file (structured, not narrative).
- Not an instance
A free-text email to a programme officer (not organised under template headings).
Editorial commentary
The DMP narrative is the human-readable prose portion of a Data Management Plan (DMP), typically organised under the section headings of whichever funder or institutional template applies — data description, standards and metadata, storage and security, sharing and access, responsibilities, and resourcing are common headings across NIH, NSF, UKRI, and Horizon Europe templates. For many funders the narrative remains the primary deliverable even where a machine-actionable DMP (maDMP) also exists behind it, because the narrative is what explains and justifies decisions — why this repository, why this embargo length, why these particular access controls — in a way that a structured field alone cannot.
A research office deals with the narrative constantly: it is the document reviewed, commented on, and ultimately submitted with a grant application, and it is usually the artefact a programme officer actually reads. In hybrid workflows that use a machine-actionable DMP (maDMP) tool such as DMPRoadmap or Argos, the narrative and the machine-readable version are generated from the same underlying answers, so editing the narrative and exporting a structured JSON file are two views of one dataset rather than two documents to keep in sync by hand.
How it differs from adjacent DMP concepts
- vs. DMP machine-readable expression — the narrative is prose for a human reader; the machine-readable expression is a typed, structured serialisation for software.
- vs. DMP template — the template is the question set; the narrative is the set of answers written out in prose.
References
- Science Europe, Practical Guide to the International Alignment of Research Data Management (2021).
Also known as
DMP prose · narrative DMP
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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vocab-term="DMP narrative"
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"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:22:48",
"dateModified": "2026-08-22T14:11:33",
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