Who we are

Research Design Service (RDS) London is funded by the National Institute for Health Research. We provide free support to health and social care researchers in London.

We comply fully with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which came into effect on 25 May 2018, and the Data Protection Act 1998. For the Act, the data controller is RDS London.

Why do we collect data?

We may collect and process the following data:

  • Information that you provide by filling in forms on our website. This includes details provided when subscribing to our e-bulletin or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information if you report a problem with our website.
  • If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
  • We may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for communication purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.
  • Details of transactions you carry out through our site and of the fulfillment of your orders.
  • Details of your visits to our site including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access.

How do we use this information?

Your information is stored securely in our database. Only members of the RDS London team can access the information and will be treated in the strictest confidence. Your contact details will be used for various analyses of the service and in reports to the NIHR. The information presented from the analyses will be anonymous and will not be linked to any personally identifiable information.

We hold our contact information so we can establish the outcome/s of your research application/s for the purposes of providing annual reporting metrics to its’ managing agents (National Institute of Health Research).

All publicly funded projects, funding panel minutes and decisions are freely available, and all successful applications are made available via the Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC). If we are unable to obtain an outcome from you then we will use publicly available sources or information gained from funders to determine an application’s outcome.

How do we protect personal information?

No personally identifiable information provided to NIHR RDS London will be passed on or otherwise distributed to any third party (any organisation or person outside NIHR) by RDS London staff, except where individual consent has been sought and granted or there is an overriding statutory obligation to do so.

How long do we keep your information for?

Your personal information will be stored in our database until one year after the RDS London contract period unless the information relates to a financial transaction when we are obliged to retain it for up to seven years for auditing purposes.

We use your personal information for:

  • the purpose of delivering the service
  • annual reporting
  • impact assessment.

Subscription to our monthly e-bulletin

Your email address will be used to mail you the e-bulletin. Your email will be passed to a mailing house which will distribute the e-bulletin on behalf of RDS London. The data cannot be accessed by anyone except RDS London. RDS London will solely collect

Anyone subscribing to receive the RDS London monthly e-bulletin can unsubscribe from receiving such information at any time either by following the unsubscribe link sent with the e-bulletin or by contacting us at comms@rdslondon.co.uk.

Event bookings

We use Eventbrite for promotion and bookings. By registering to attend an event, you consent to the collection, retention and use of your personal information in accordance with our data protection statement.

Please note that Eventbrite is a third-party service that is not owned or managed by RDS London. You should review Eventbrite’s terms and conditions and privacy policy as we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies.

If you wish to attend one of our events but do not wish to use Eventbrite to book a place, please email comms@rdslondon.co.uk.

Personal information provided when booking an event will be deleted within one month of the event. If you have opted in to receive further information about upcoming events we will retain data in accordance with our data protection statement.

IP addresses

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns and does not identify any individual.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and allows us to improve our site.

What are 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).

General changes
If you wish to contact RDS London 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 RDS London at info@rdslondon.co.uk.

If we decide to change our Data Protection Statement and Privacy Policy, we will post details of any changes on this section of the 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.

Complaints & Feedback

Should you have a complaint about the way RDS London processes your personal information, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner via their website or by writing to the Commissioner to:
The Information Commissioner
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

RDS London’s privacy statement can be used in conjunction with NIHR’s main privacy statement.