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

The NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners complies fully with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Project development support
As a recipient of support from the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners, we will collect and securely store some biographical information (name, contact details, organisation) and project information relating to your application in order to facilitate our advice giving. We will retain that data until one year after the end of our successive RSS contracts.

The NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners will take appropriate steps to ensure confidentiality of any information sent to us via our website, although we cannot accept any liability for the loss or disclosure of data sent to us in this way.

In some circumstances, in order for the RSS team to gain professional support and specialist advice, personal data – including details of your research proposal – may be shared with trusted third party organisations in order for the RSS team to provide its service more effectively. This is done under the legal basis of legitimate interests. Your data will only be shared where it is in the specific interest of fulfilling your request for support (for example, sharing it with a Clinical Trials Unit). Examples of trusted organisations that RSS works with include (but are not limited to) university Research & Support Services, finance departments for bid costings, NHS Trust Research & Development offices, the Wessex Academic Health Sciences Network, NIHR Clinical Research Networks, Clinical Trials Units.

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 RSS. The NIHR 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 RSS, CCF and NIHR.

The NIHR privacy policy 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. It also explains how NIHR may use your data, contact details, and details of your individual rights in relation to how your data is used.

You will be asked to share your final application with us before it is submitted for funding. This is for our own internal evaluation, as it’s helpful to see whether our suggestions have been used, and to have a record of your proposal.

You will be asked to let us know the outcome of your research application. All publicly funded projects, funding panel minutes and decisions are made publicly available via Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC). If we are unable to obtain an outcome from you, we will use publicly available sources, such as Europe PMC or information gained from funders to determine an application’s outcome.

Evaluations
From time to time the RSS will ask you, anonymously (an optional choice to tell us your name may be provided), 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 anonymous quotes may be used as feedback to our funders. Collated data will be kept until one year after the end of successive RSS contracts, individual data will be kept for one year.

CCF asks us to circulate their RSS 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 the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners “Latest Calls and other opportunities” e-bulletin then your name and email is stored in a MailChimp account which we use to distribute all of our ebulletins and updates. MailChimp is fully GDPR compliant (see MailChimp’s privacy policy) and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link at the bottom of the ebulletin. Neither RSS nor MailChimp will share your details with a third party. Your data will be kept until one year after the end of successive RSS contracts, or until you unsubscribe.

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 throughout our region. Collated data will be kept until one year after the end of successive RSS 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 RSS contract plus one year.

NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners uses Eventbrite to manage its bookings. Information on how Eventbrite manage booking data can be found here: Eventbrite privacy policy.

Website analytics
The NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners only collates 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 data at that level of detail.

Data retention
The NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners regularly reviews the data it holds and removes any that is no longer required. If your contact information has not been removed in a regular review, it will ultimately be removed from our records one year after the end of successive RSS contracts, unless the information relates to a financial transaction, where we are obliged to retain it for up to seven years for auditing purposes.

Your rights
By law, you have certain rights over your personal information to:

• receive a copy of your information
• ask us to correct any errors
• delete it once we no longer need it
• ask us to stop using your information in a certain way
• ask for certain information in a portable, electronic format
• object to certain uses of your information (for example, marketing and automatic profiling or decision making).

How to contact us
If you wish to contact the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners 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, please contact us at:

Address: NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners,
Mail Point 805, Level C, South Academic Block, Southampton General Hospital, SO16 6YD
Phone: 02381 204 778
Email: nihr-rss@soton.ac.uk

Complaints
If you have a complaint about the way the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners processes your personal information, please contact us using the above details. In addition, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner online or by writing to the Commissioner at: The Information Commissioner, Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

If we decide to change our Privacy Statement, we will email clients and 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 retain it, and under what circumstances, if any, we share it with other parties.

This confidentiality statement provides you with information about how we deal with the intellectual property we are privy to whilst supporting the development of your application. Please consult the privacy statement for details of the information we collect and store about your project and how long we’ll retain it.

As a recipient of support from the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners we will have sight of your application and be party to discussions regarding direction, scope and intellectual property (IP) of your project.

All of the information you provide us with will be treated in the strictest confidence and it will only be used to help us to give the best possible advice during the development of your application. Apart from RSS members of staff, we will only share your ideas and/or application, where appropriate, with our public contributors and trusted third party organisations who assist with bid support*. All public contributors have been trained by the RSS and have signed a confidentiality statement prior to taking up the role.

As part of the working agreement with the RSS you will be asked to share your final application with us before it is submitted for funding. This is for our own internal evaluation, as it is helpful to see whether our suggestions have been used in your bid. Having a record of your proposal will give us something to refer back to if the bid is eventually funded.

Please note that the RSS will take appropriate steps to ensure confidentiality of any information sent to us via our website, although we cannot accept any liability for the loss or disclosure of data sent to us in this way.

*In some circumstances, in order for the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by the University of Southampton and Partners team to gain professional support and specialist advice, personal data – including details of your research proposal – may be shared with trusted third party organisations in order for the RSS team to provide its service more effectively. This is done under the legal basis of legitimate interests. Your data will only be shared where it is in the specific interest of fulfilling your request for support (for example, sharing it with a Clinical Trials Unit). Examples of trusted organisations that RSS works with include (but are not limited to) university Research & Support Services, finance departments for bid costings, NHS Trust Research & Development offices, the Wessex Academic Health Sciences Network, NIHR Clinical Research Networks, Clinical Trials Units.