The NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub delivered by Newcastle University and Partners is one of eight hubs across England which deliver a national collaborative service.

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. 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, we will collect and securely store 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. RSS Hub staff are based at the following organisations:

• Newcastle University
• Durham University
• Northumbria University
• Teesside University
• University of Cumbria

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 Coordinating Centre (NIHR CC) to evaluate the management and delivery of the RSS. The NIHR CC is part of the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) NIHR. All information will be held securely and treated in the strictest confidence by the RSS, NIHR CC 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 the RSS 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.

Mailing list subscriptions
If you've signed up to an RSS news alert, newsletter, bulletin or other similar publication then your name and email may be stored in a MailChimp account which we use to distribute all of our ebulletins and updates. MailChimp are fully GDPR compliant (privacy policy) and you can unsubscribe at any time with the link on the bottom of a mailing. 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. Personal information may be shared with relevant staff across the RSS to facilitate management and evaluation of events. Full details with be provided at the time of registering for an event.

Website analytics
The 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 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.

Individual data relating to event bookings 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 Hub contract 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, please contact us at:

Address: NIHR Research Support Service, Newcastle University, Baddiley-Clark Building, Richardson Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4AX

Email: nihr-rss@newcastle.ac.uk

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 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.

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.

Confidentiality statement

This document provides you with the information about how we, the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS) Hub delivered by Newcastle University and Partners, 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 RSS (one of eight RSS Hubs across England) 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 RSS Hub 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 RSS and have signed a confidentiality statement prior to taking up the role.

On occasion, in order to provide you with the best support, we may need to consult an expert outside of the RSS Hub. If this situation arises, we will seek your consent before approaching them.

As part of working a with the RSS Hub, 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 RSS Hub will take appropriate steps to ensure confidentiality of any information sent to us via email, although we cannot accept any liability for the loss or disclosure of data sent to us in this way.