Guidance

Research and innovation (R&I) workforce survey wave 2: Privacy Notice

Published 11 March 2024

We are collecting evidence on the research and innovation (R&I) workforce to create a better evidence base for policy decision-making in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and other relevant government departments.

This notice sets out how we will process your personal data, and your rights. It is made under Articles 13 and/or 14 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

1. Your data

We will process the following personal data. The R&I Workforce Survey will include optional questions about:

• gender
• gender identity
• sexual orientation
• ethnicity
• nationality
• age
• socioeconomic background
• disability
• health conditions
• pay

We will process the following special category data:

• ethnicity
• health conditions
• sexual orientation
• gender identity

Participants who agree to be recontacted (for an in-depth interview or for a future wave of the survey) will be asked to provide their name and email address.

Participants who withdraw consent to be recontacted for future survey waves will be asked to provide their name and email address to ensure exclusion from any recontacting for future waves.

Participants who agree to have their data linked with other datasets will be asked to provide their date of birth.

Participation in the survey is voluntary and questions relating to personal data can be left unanswered.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) (data controller) commissioned The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (data processor), a specialist research agency, to collect and analyse data for this survey on DSIT’s behalf.

2. Purpose

The purpose(s) for which we are processing your personal data is:

Boosting innovation is one of the government’s priorities and forms one of the pillars for Build Back Better: Plan for Growth. Innovation is a key driver of economic growth and improvements to living standards, through the development of new ideas, products and processes and their adoption and diffusion across the economy. The UK government is increasing its investment in Research & Development (R&D) and will use it to boost R&D strengths across the UK, as one of the key tools to increase innovation. In 2021/22, government invested £14.6 billion in research and innovation grants and facilities, since then the government have been increasing funding into this area. This investment will back the priorities set out in the UK government’s Research and Development Roadmap with total spending on R&D in 2021 equating to around 2.9% to 3% of GDP. As well as this, industry, universities, and other research organisations fund R&D, and in total the UK spent £57.1 billion on R&D in 2021.

This project is a follow-up study of the 2022 R&I workforce survey run by the UK government. The project will therefore provide longitudinal data on various factors of R&I sectors. This will provide decision makers with further evidence on the R&I workforce, that currently relies on a patchwork of surveys and data sources (and even where R&I worker date exists it does not answer a full range of important questions and data linking is not built into its design). This survey will help development and delivery of action plans to achieve the outcomes in the “Talent and Skills” intervention in the Science and Technology Framework and give us greater data on the impact/success of measures implemented to deliver the People & Culture Strategy’s outcomes. Additionally, it will help to strengthen evidence-based policymaking on mobility, research culture, career porosity, workforce diversity and inclusion, research bureaucracy and other areas of cross-departmental priority such as skills.

3. Data Linking

You will be asked if you agree to match your personal data to:

• One or more existing datasets: Higher Education Statistical Authority data, Longitudinal Educations Outcomes data, UK Innovation Survey, ONS R&D Expenditure and business data, Gateway to Research, Intellectual Property (IP) data, publications data (i.e. OpenAlex/SciVal), and Beauhurst. This will give DSIT a better overall picture of the R&I workforce, their education and career paths.
• UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) grants datasets. This will provide UKRI with evidence on how to better tailor the policy and grants support that they offer to the R&I workforce. UKRI’s privacy policy can be found here.

All information collected as part of this project will be used for research purposes and forming an evidence base for better policy decision-making. Any outputs from data linking (e.g., reports, statistical tables) will not contain any individual-level personal data and respondents will be kept anonymous. Under no circumstances will the data be used to profile individuals, or to influence individual funding decisions.

Individuals will be matched to UKRI data using the name and email address associated with their unique survey link. We may also use survey responses on date of birth, ethnicity and gender to confirm that the person responding is the same person who was sent the unique link.

4. Legal basis of processing

Personal Data

The legal basis for processing your personal data under Article 6 (1) (e) of the UK GDPR is:

Public task: Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. 

For the purpose of this project, the public tasks related to collecting evidence on the R&I workforce to create a better evidence base for policy decision-making in DSIT and other relevant government departments.

Special Category Data

The legal basis for processing your special category data under Article 9 of the UK GDPR is:

• Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest for the exercise of a function of the Crown, a Minister of the Crown, or a government department; the exercise of a function conferred on a person by an enactment; the exercise of a function of either House of Parliament; or the administration of justice; and an appropriate policy document is in place. For the purposes of this project, the public task relates to collecting evidence on the R&I workforce including its diversity to create a better evidence base for policy decision-making in DSIT and other relevant government departments that is covered by paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 (statutory and government purposes).

Other specific purposes as defined below

Personal data

Consent: You consent to us doing so. You consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes. Should you change your mind, you can withdraw consent at any time by contacting riworkforcesurvey@dsit.gov.uk.

In accordance with article 6 paragraph 1(a), where consent has been requested and provided in the survey, the legal basis for processing such data is consent. This includes:

• Recontacting for future interviews
• Recontacting for future waves of the survey
• Sharing your responses with UKRI
• Linking your responses with other government datasets

Special Category Data

The legal basis for processing Special Category Data for this purpose is:

The data subject has given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes, except where domestic law provides that the prohibition referred to in paragraph 1 may not be lifted by the data subject. This is outlined in article 9 paragraph 2(a) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting riworkforcesurvey@dsit.gov.uk

5. Recipients

Your personal data will be collected and shared with DSIT by The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT).

Analysts working on DSIT research projects with genuine reason to access your personal data (for example R&I Workforce specific analysis or quality assurance) will be allowed access.

Only if you agree for your personal data to be matched to other government datasets, we may share your personal data with other relevant government departments. If you agree for your personal data to be matched to UK Research and Innovation grants databases, we may share your personal data with UKRI analysts.

As your personal data will be stored on our IT infrastructure it will also be shared with our data processors Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.

6. Retention

Your personal data will be kept by us for:

• Where the legal basis for processing is public task, it will be kept indefinitely for statistical purposes
• Where the legal basis for processing is consent
  • Interviews/discussions/related research – personal data for the purposes of recontacting participants for interviews/discussions/related research will be retained for a period of 12 months after they complete the survey.
  • Future waves – personal data for the purpose of recontacting participants for future waves of the survey will be retained for a period of 3 years.

7. International Transfers

Your personal data will be processed in the UK.

Your personal data will not be processed in the European Economic Area (EEA), or by an international organisation.

8. Your rights

You have the right:

• to request information about how your personal data are processed, and to request a copy of that personal data.
• to request that any inaccuracies in your personal data are rectified without delay.
• to request that any incomplete personal data are completed, including by means of a supplementary statement.
• to request that your personal data are erased if there is no longer a justification for them to be processed.
• in certain circumstances (for example, where accuracy is contested) to request that the processing of your personal data is restricted.
• to object to the processing of your personal data where it is processed for direct marketing purposes.
• to withdraw consent to the processing of your personal data at any time by contacting riworkforcesurvey@dsit.gov.uk
• to object to the processing of your personal data

9. Contact details

The data controller for your personal data is the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). You can contact the DSIT Data Protection Officer at:

DSIT Data Protection Officer
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
22-26 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2EG

Email dataprotection@dsit.gov.uk

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your personal data, please write to the department’s Data Protection Officer in the first instance using the contact details above.

10. Complaints

If you consider that your personal data has been misused or mishandled, you may make a complaint to the Information Commissioner, who is an UK independent regulator. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

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

Telephone: 0303 123 1113
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

Any complaint to the Information Commissioner is without prejudice to your right to seek redress through the courts.

11. Updates to this notice

If this privacy notice changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we will share it with other parties. The ‘last updated’ date at the bottom of this page will also change.

If these changes affect how your personal data is processed, we will take reasonable steps to let you know.

Last updated: 21 February 2024