This document is meant as a draft for DMPs that should be filled out by every research project hosted on the NFDI4Microbiota platform that is officially supported by NFDI4Microbiota data stewards (e.g. for partners and use cases, link to helpdesk for NFDI4Microbiota flagged DMPs). DMPs should optimally be filled out before projects are submitted for funding and are supposed to produce the „Research Data Handling“ chapter of proposals as required by e.g. DFG. The DMP should be extended and updated after funding is secured and can be referred to in future analysis or support processes. We could try to make this mandatory for use cases and similar projects within NFDI4Microbiota. Optimally, this reduces researchers efforts in the planning phase and enables them to assure adequate data handling during the realization phase. For any NFDI4Microbiota related project this could serve as a best practice example.