Confidentiality statement
This document provides you with the information about how we deal with the intellectual property that we are privy to whilst supporting your application development. Please consult the privacy statement for what information we collect and store about your project and how long we’ll hold it for.
As a recipient of support from the NIHR Research Design Service North West (RDS NW) we will have sight of your application and will be party to discussions regarding direction, scope and intellectual property (IP) within your project.
All information that you provide us will be treated in the strictest confidence and only used to help us to give the best possible advice giving in the development of your application. Apart from RDS NW members of staff, we will only share your ideas and/or application, where appropriate, with our public contributors. All public contributors have been trained by the RDS NW and have signed a confidentiality statement prior to taking up the role.
On occasion, to provide you with the best support, we may need to consult an expert outside of the RDS NW. If this situation arises, we will seek your consent before approaching them. Examples of trusted organisations that RDS NW works with include, but are not limited to, University Research and Support Services, finance departments for bid costings, NHS Trust Research & Development Offices, Academic Health Sciences Network, NIHR Clinical Research Networks, Clinical Trials Units.
As part of the working agreement with the RDS NW, you will be asked to share your final application with us before it is submitted for funding. This is for our own internal evaluation; it’s helpful to see whether our suggestions have been useful enough for you to use in your bid and whether the bid is eventually funded.
Please note that the RDS NW will take appropriate steps to ensure confidentiality of any information sent to us via our website or email, although we cannot accept any liability for the loss or disclosure of data sent to us in this way.
You can download a copy of our confidentiality statement here (PDF).
Version 1.0
Date: 14 April 2021
