Doctoral training in the arts and humanities: Engagement, review and options for future provision

Privacy notice dated 20 August 2021

1.     Introduction

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has commissioned the Careers Research & Advisory Centre (CRAC), supported by RAND Europe, to conduct a review and engagement exercise to inform its thinking around the future of doctoral provision in the arts and humanities. The exercise will aim to review recent provision and consider the future needs of a wide range of stakeholders, in order to develop options for future doctoral training and support appropriate to the context of research and employment in 2030 and beyond.

The AHRC is committed to protecting your personal information and being clear about what information it holds about individuals and how it is used.

https://ahrc.ukri.org/about/policies/privacy-notice/

AHRC is part of UKRI, which is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – registration number ZA333592; you can check this on the ICO’s website: https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/what-we-do/register-of-fee-payers/

2.  Data Controller and processors

For the purpose of this project, the AHRC is the Data Controller. It has appointed CRAC to devise and a range of engagement activities within the evaluation project, including interviews, group discussions and surveys. As such CRAC acts as a Data Processor (as defined in data protection legislation).

The AHRC’s Senior Investment Manager (Skills), Ian Broadbridge, is the first point of contact for people whose information is being processed. You can contact him by email at ian.broadbridge@ahrc.ukri.org

3.  How we will use your information

We can only use your personal information where we have a specific purpose for doing so and have told you what those reasons are.

In this engagement exercise CRAC will collect a range of information (including comments during interviews or groups and responses to questions in surveys) from current and former doctoral students, academics and other staff in HE institutions, employers and other interested parties.

Results from the engagement activities will be summarised in a report that CRAC will write and submit to AHRC to assist its consideration of how it should support doctoral provision in future. In that report, all information and any comments quoted will be anonymised.

The specific uses that will be made of any personal information we collect about you are listed below:

  • Your perceptions, experiences and ideas will be used by CRAC to develop a report that provides a review of recent provision and how it could change in future to suit the needs of all future stakeholders
  • Selected information may be transferred to and retained by AHRC, although not including any personal information, for the purposes of further consideration of its future provision and support.

If we want to use your personal information for a reason other than those purposes set out above, we will tell you before we start that use and provide further information about the new purpose(s).

4.  Legal basis for using your personal information

Under data protection legislation, we require a legal basis to be able to process your personal information for the purposes set out above.

The collection and use of your personal information will be based on you providing your explicit consent.

Withdrawal of consent
Consent must be a clear positive action that you have given your agreement to the use of your personal information, and consent can also be withdrawn at any point if you are no longer happy with the use of your personal information for a specific reason. If you to wish to withdraw consent, please do so by contacting the person specified in section 2 of this notice. Once consent is withdrawn, we will destroy all relevant personal information unless we are relying on a different legal basis to justify keeping your personal information. If that is the case, we will tell you in writing. However, withdrawing your consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before you withdrew consent.

5.     What personal information we will collect

From interviews or group discussions carried out as part of this project, the personal information we will collect and use is set out below:

  • Name
  • Job role
  • Email address/other contact information
  • Name of organisation

Within our surveys, the personal information collected could include the above but additionally:

  • Sex
  • Ethnicity
  • Disability

6. Who we give your personal information to

The information you submit will be compiled by CRAC. Only generalised information or aggregate level results will be documented in our report/s, with the possible exception of illustrative verbatim comments, but no individual will be identifiable in any of the outputs of the exercise (other than in exceptional circumstances, in which case it would only be with your explicit agreement). We will not pass your personal information to any other organisation except where required to do so by law.

7. Where your personal information will be stored

CRAC will store the data collected on servers which may reside outside the UK. In the case of data collected through an online survey, we will provide specific and more detailed about the storage and security depending on the survey platform used, by updates to this notice.

8. Your rights over your personal information

Once your personal information has been collected, you have certain rights in relation to that personal information that may be exercised. You have the right to:

  • Ask for a copy of your personal information
  • Correct inaccurate personal information held about you
  • Ask for your personal information to be deleted (within certain limits)
  • Restrict processing of your personal information
  • Ask for a copy of your information in a format that allows easy transfer (“data portability”)
  • Object to automated decision making or profiling (if these take place)

All these rights have certain limitations depending on the request and the purpose for which we are holding your personal information. Further information can be found about these rights and the AHRC’s processes for handling such requests at:

https://ahrc.ukri.org/about/policies/privacy-notice/

9. How we protect your personal information

The AHRC and CRAC have a number of security measures in place to protect your personal information, listed below:

  • All staff are required to undertake training in data protection and information security on joining the organisation and then on an annual basis;
  • Formal information security policies that must be read and understood by all staff;
  • Personal information and special data is only available to those members of staff who require access as part of their role;
  • CRAC’s information and data systems are accredited through the Cyber Essentials scheme;
  • CRAC has the ISO27001 Information Security standard (accredited May 2021).

10. How long we will hold your personal information

We are only able to retain a copy of your personal information as long as it is still needed for the purpose(s) for which it was collected.

The project is scheduled for completion by 31 October 2022. Any personal information you have submitted will not be retained by CRAC any longer than 31 December 2022. Selected information may be held by the AHRC longer than this for the purposes set out above, but this will not include personal information.

11.  Complaints about the use of personal information

If you are unhappy with the way in which your personal information has been handled, please contact us via ian.broadbridge@ahrc.ukri.org who will try to resolve your issue informally.

If we have are not able to resolve the issue to your satisfaction, you can also make a complaint to the data protection supervisory authority. In the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and they can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire   SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113
Email: casework@ico.org.uk

14. Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notices under regular review and we will inform you of any changes to this notice in writing.

This privacy notice was last updated on 20 August 2021.

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