NIHR Research Support Service Hub delivered by University of Birmingham and Partners

Privacy statement 

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.  The National Institute for Health and Social Care Research, Research Support Service (NIHR RSS) complies fully with the General Data Protection Regulations.  

Overview

The NIHR RSS provides support and advice to researchers developing funding applications at all stages of the research pathway - from pre-application through to post-award support through collaboration with our CTUs. Our service is delivered by eight ‘Hubs’, each a partnership of research groups, organisations and clinical trials units (CTUs) with expertise in applied health and care research (Birmingham, Imperial, Kings, Lancaster, Leicester, Newcastle, Southampton, York). The NIHR RSS has Specialist Centres (SC) (Social Care - Lancaster and York, and Public Health – Newcastle and Southampton). The Public Health SC have a broader remit and greater emphasis on capacity and capability development, and also support with funding application development for research conducted outside the NHS.    

Our service is national and not geographically based.

Project development support 

As a recipient of support from the NIHR RSS we will collect and securely store project information relating to your application in order to facilitate our advice and guidance. We will retain that data until one year after the end of our successive NIHR RSS 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 NIHR RSS. The CCF is part of the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC). All information will be held securely and treated in the strictest confidence by the NIHR RSS, CCF and DHSC. 

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. 

If it is of benefit to your project to involve other NIHR RSS Hubs or Specialist Centres we will ask for permission to share your information before doing so.

Evaluations 

From time to time the NIHR RSS may 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 contracts, individual data will be kept for one year. 

Mailing list subscriptions 

If you’ve signed up to an NIHR RSS news alert, newsletter, bulletin or other similar publication then your name and email may be stored in an account which is fully GDPR compliant (privacy policy) and you can unsubscribe at any time with the link on the bottom of a mailing. NIHR RSS will not share your details with a third party. Your data will be kept until one year after the end of successive NIHR RSS contracts or until you unsubscribe.  

Website analytics 

The NIHR RSS collates only data regarding unique page views and time spent on the site. This information is used to improve our websites, tailor our information to user need and monitor interest in certain areas. Although IP-address data may be available our analytics do not include the data at that level of detail. 

Data retention

Your contact information will be removed from our records, one year after the end of successive NIHR RSS 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: 

By e-mail: nihr-rss-bham-and-partners@contacts.bham.ac.uk 

Should you have any complaint about the way that the we process 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. 

Updates to this privacy statement

If we decide to change our Privacy Statement, we will update this document. 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.