PI leaving institution and ownership of data issue

[IamAporcupine]

Does anyone have any experience on this?

Do the samples/data belong to the Institution or PI?
Does it depend on whether the data was acquired under specific conditions? (eg grant)
Or the circumstances for the PIs move?

Any help/experience would be very helpful - thanks

All the PIs are probably too busy

I'm in the Humanities, and my data is my data ...

Thanks CatandtheFiddle

Yes, I should have clarified - Medical Genetics field, and by data I mainly mean genomic data

I think legally it may belong to the institution (ive used that to extract data from an unproductive research assistant who resigned early, so that at least we had a chance of publishing something from their years of employment...)

Thanks ommmward - that's what I thought too, but I have no real experience about it

In my experience while it can be an individual, it's more usually the institution. Is it specified anywhere in the paperwork - study protocol, ethics, patient information leaflet?

Thanks MadamWillYouTalk

Some datasets were collected under specific grants/projects so there might be some paperwork, but others were done through collaboration agreements.

I am the RA.
PI left but still claims ownership of the data.

If medical samples and related data were collected directly there must have been ethics approval(s) in place for the various datasets? I'd check those, there should be details about how/where/how long the samples and data can be held. Failing that, your data protection lead might be able to help.

The PI can claim it's theirs, but saying something don't make it so (as I told my 7 year old earlier today 😆)

when I moved institutions, I took all my data with me. but there was no one left behind who wanted it, and my grant which let me collect the data moved with me.

For a big multi-person collaboration, there should be a collaboration agreement of some form that sets this up. At least, it shouldn't be the RA having to decide.

are you now RA for someone else? or still for that PI? Is there any reason to not give the PI the data?

I have known more than one PI who thinks the data is ‘theirs’ when it isn’t. You need grant conditions/ other info to check though as sometimes specific things are worked out (but unlikely to be ‘the PI owns the data’!). This is the general UKRI data policy : www.ukri.org/funding/information-for-award-holders/data-policy/common-principles-on-data-policy/

There may be a difference between convention (the data moves with the PI) and the technical contract- we have had disputes at our uni over this. Also, I don't know why you want the data- is it to publish? Would that be possible without the PI/grant body pre-screening any publications?

Technically your institution might own the data, but it's far from clear how you would then proceed if you didn't have the backing of the moved PI/grant body to do something with it- I guess the first stop is to find out who owns that data and start from there.

It could be anyone depending on the terms under which it was collected. Sometimes it is owned by the funder, sometimes by the institution, sometimes by some or all of the people who collected it. If there are any contracts, ethical documentation, etc. it will be in there.

As an RA, unless you have the information easily to hand, e.g. you have access to the exact contractual terms under which the data was collected, it is not your responsibility to get involved in these kind of technical / legal debates and trying to will only confuse things. Refer it to the correct person in your department / university and inform anyone who asks that this is what you have done.

Thanks everyone for their replies

I have decided to stay away from this shit.
Have emailed everyone involved what I know and a couple of suggestions to try to sort the problem out, but that's it - I am out.