The Researcher Toolkit is a resource for UW-Madison faculty, staff, and student researchers that points to helpful resources for each phase of your research project.
The Toolkit is updated annually and the last review and update was completed in Feb 2023. If you have suggestions for changes, please provide feedback.
What is the research lifecycle?
The research lifecycle
The research lifecycle includes planning, collecting & storing data, analyzing & visualizing data, publishing research artifacts, and closing out the findings.
Plus outreach, compliance, reporting, and security happening throughout the process.
Research lifecycle components
Plan
This section includes tools to help you plan research project, specifically how you’ll conduct your research including finding resources and centers on campus you may need before beginning your research, creating a data management plan, designing your study, and finding collaborators.
Gather Data
This section discusses tools that will help you collect and store research samples data, including data collection tools, core facilities that process research samples, data storage options, and consultation services.
Analyze & Visualize Data
This section includes resources for formatting data, writing programs for statistical analysis and visualizing data in plots or other forms. Many of the resources listed in this section will help support you in learning how to use a programming language and other computing resources.
Publish Research Artifacts
This section includes resources for making research outputs findable, accessible, and understandable and is an important of research transparency, reproducibility, and open science, including software that will help you prepare manuscripts and repositories to publish your content.
Closeout
The final stage of a research project is the programmatic and financial closeout of the award. Research & Sponsored Programs (RSP), divisions, departments, and Principal Investigators (PIs) work together to verify that all requirements and conditions are met and ensure that all funds are disbursed.
Cross‑Cutting Themes
This section covers broad themes that span the research data lifecycle.