Privacy statement

Please note this statement has been updated from version 5.0 to version 5.1.

Privacy Statement for NIHR Research Design Service North West

The purpose of this privacy document is to set out what data we collect, why we collect it and how long we will keep it for. Please consult our confidentiality statement for information on how we handle the content of your project applications and associated intellectual property.

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Design Service North West (RDS NW) complies fully with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Project development support

As a recipient of support from the RDS NW, we will collect and securely store project information relating to your application to facilitate our advice giving. We will retain that data until one year after the end of our successive RDS NW contracts.

We additionally categorise our support by category and time spent. This information will be shared annually, along with details pertaining to the project’s principal investigator, with the NIHR Central Commissioning Facility (CCF) to evaluate the management and delivery of the Research Design Service (RDS). The CCF is part of the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) NIHR. All information will be held securely and treated in the strictest confidence by the RDS, CCF and NIHR.

The NIHR privacy policy includes further information including ways NIHR may use your data, contact details and details of your individual rights in relation to how your data will be used. This includes details of the information collected by NIHR, why it is collected, how long it will be retained and how the information will be used.

Evaluations

From time to time the RDS NW will ask you, anonymously, to evaluate the service that you have received, whether it is project support or, for example, event attendance. The feedback we receive is used to improve our service and quotes may be used as feedback to our funders. Collated data will be kept until one year after the end of successive RDS NW contracts, individual data will be kept for one year.

CCF asks us to circulate their RDS evaluation survey each year, to those who we have provided application support to in the latest annual reporting period. Please consult the NIHR privacy policy for the handling of that data.

Mailing list subscriptions

If you’ve signed up to an RDS NW news alert, newsletter, bulletin or other similar publication then your name and email may be stored securely in a database hosted at Lancaster University and you can unsubscribe at any time by sending an email to rds-nw@lancaster.ac.uk. RDS NW will not share your details with a third party. Your data will be kept until one year after the end of successive RDS NW contracts or until you unsubscribe.

Event bookings

By signing up to attend a national RDS or RDS NW event you consent to the collection and storage of your booking data. This data will be used to facilitate the administration of the event and the evaluation of our effectiveness to reach and engage with researchers throughout our region and nationally. Collated data will be kept until one year after the end of successive RDS contracts, individual data will be kept for one year unless it relates to photo permissions in which case it will be held until the end of the RDS contract plus one year.

RDS NW use Eventbrite to manage their bookings. Information on how Eventbrite manage booking data can be found here: privacy policy

Website analytics

RDS NW collect data, via Google Analytics, on how our website is used, for example page views. This information is used to improve our website, tailor our information to user needs and monitor interest in certain areas such as our RDS NW videos. While your IP address is passed to Google, no data specific to any identifiable user is retained. Further detail about our website analytics, cookies, and other information we collect can be found here.

Data retention

Your contact information will be removed from our records, one year after the end of successive RDS NW contracts, unless the information relates to a financial transaction when we are obliged to retain it for up to seven years for auditing purposes.

How to contact us

If you wish to contact RDS NW to ensure that your contact details are correct and up-to-date, to ask for your contact information to be removed from our records, please contact us at:

Address: NIHR Research Design Service North West, D24, Health Innovation One, Sir John Fisher Drive, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4AT.

Phone:     01524 593209

Email:      rds-nw@lancaster.ac.uk

Should you have any complaint about the way that the RDS NW processes your personal information you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner by visiting: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ – or by writing to the Commissioner at: The Information Commissioner, Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

You can also contact Lancaster University’s Data Protection Officer, Mike Abbotts, at:

Address: Department of Strategic Planning and Governance, University House, Lancaster University, LA1 4YW

Phone:     01524 510841

Email:      michael.abbotts@lancaster.ac.uk

Updates to this privacy statement

If we decide to change our Privacy Statement, we will update this document on our website. This will help ensure that you are always aware of what personal information we collect, how we use it, how long we will retain it for and under what circumstances, if any, we share it with other parties.

Download our privacy statement

You can download a copy of our privacy statement here.

 

Version 5.1

Date page updated: 29/04/2022.