Introduction. This thesis analyzes how researchers views the data management plans, how they use them and how they interact with the data support functions at the university. Theory & Method.  The theoretical underpinnings of the study are Janken Myrdals theory of the research method as signifier of natural or humanistic research, and the research method is semi-structured interviews. The study’s empirical material consists of six interviews with researchers from four different scientific fields, which have been transcribed and processed through a qualitative thematic and comparative analysis. Results & Analysis. Five main themes have been identified: (1) bureaucratic demands, (2) a lack of support or a lack of interest?, (3) the data management plans connection to ethical review, (4) the impact of the method on the view of the data management plan, (5) time constraints and the plan as support in the research work. Conclusions. Researchers experience of working with data management plans does not give an unambiguous picture: some see it as an administrative burden or as something of a time sink. Others view it as something that benefits both their own work and when collaborating with colleagues. Moreover divided views exist regarding the support offered by the university when working with data management plans. Some respondents view it as adequate while others suggest that researchers needs to inform themselves on how to write the plan.

While the preservation and sharing of research data are two topics well researched, there is a need to better understand the connections between them, especially from a Swedish perspective. In relation to this, it is interesting to investigate how researchers themselves are involved in these processes – where and how they preserve their data, for what reasons, how they manage their data for preservation and sharing, and furthermore what consequences this might have for the archiving of research data. The method used in this thesis is semi-structured interviews with 10 researchers from various Swedish universities, conducted in person, via Zoom or by e-mail. The researchers were chosen from their sharing activities on research data repositories. The interviews were processed in Taguette, where the data was organized by tags. The tags with their related statements were then organized into themes. Furthermore, a theoretical analysis based on the records continuum model was conducted.  The primary reason that was stated for preservation was data sharing. The researchers expressed a wish for their research data to be reused, as well as stating reasons related to transparency. The researchers also expressed that their data management was influenced by future data sharing. One researcher had archived their data at the university, although most of the participants was positive to doing so in the future. It appears that the researchers in this study takes initiative when it comes to the preservation and sharing of their data. Most of the participants view the data repository as a good platform for preservation, possibly because such platforms can fulfil their reasons for participating in preservation activities. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archival Science.