NIHR Research Support Service Hub and Specialist Centre for Social Care delivered by Lancaster University and Partners

Privacy statement

The NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Social Care delivered by Lancaster University and Partners, will be referred to as the RSS Hub. The RSS is a national service delivered collaboratively via eight hubs around England.

The purpose of this privacy statement is to set out what personal information the RSS Hub collects, 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 RSS Hub complies fully with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Project development support 

As a recipient of support from the RSS, the RSS Hub will collect and securely store your personal and project information relating to your research funding application. This information will be shared and used by relevant staff of the RSS Hub, to facilitate advice provision.

RSS Hub staff are from the following organisations:

•  University of Lancaster

•  University of Manchester

•  University of Liverpool

•  Manchester Metropolitan University

With your consent, to facilitate advice provision, this information may be shared and used by RSS staff located at other organisations in England, details of which will be provided prior to your consent.

We additionally categorise our support by category and time spent. This information will be shared annually, along with details pertaining to the project’s chief investigator, with the NIHR Coordinating Centre (NIHRCC) to evaluate the management and delivery of the RSS. NIHRCC is part of the NIHR. All information will be held securely and treated in the strictest confidence by the RSS, NIHRCC 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, we 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.

Event bookings

By signing up to attend an RSS 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. Personal information may be shared with relevant staff across the RSS to facilitate management and evaluation of events. Full sharing details will be provided at the time of registering for the event.

We may use external companies to manage event bookings. They will have separate privacy policies. Please refer to the event registration website for more information.

Data retention

Any personal information you provide to the NIHR Hub will be removed from our records, one year after the end of successive RSS Hub contracts, unless the information relates to a financial transaction when we are obliged to retain it for up to seven years for auditing purposes.

Personal information relating to event bookings data will be kept for one year after the event unless it relates to photo permissions in which case it will be held until the end of the RSS Hub successive contracts, plus one year.

How to contact us

If you wish to contact the RSS Hub, to ensure that your contact details are correct and up to date or to ask for your contact information to be removed from our records, you can contact us using the details below.

Email: nihr-rss@lancaster.ac.uk

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

Should you have any complaint about the way that the RSS Hub processes your personal information you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner - 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 the University of Lancaster’s designated Data Protection Officer, Mike Abbotts:

Email:  information-governance@lancaster.ac.uk 

Address: Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster, LA1 4YW.

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.

Version 1.0 – 01/10/2023