Your privacy - what you need to know (1-minute read)
What information we collect: Your survey answers about how patient and clinician engagement shapes commercial decisions in health and life sciences organisations and some basic details about you (like your role, organisation type, and years of experience)
Who sees your personal details: Only our research team - all published reports are fully anonymised so neither you nor your organisation can be identified
Your rights: You can see, correct, or delete your information anytime
How long we keep it: We keep identifiable details (if any) for up to 6 months after the project ends, then remove any identifying information and keep anonymous answers for up to 5 years
Questions or concerns: Email help@thiscovery.org
Want full details? Keep reading below.
Your data journey - what happens to your information
While you're taking part
- Only our research team sees your answers
- We keep your contact details (if provided) separate from your answers
- All information is encrypted and stored securely on UK GDPR compliant servers
In our report
- Thiscovery analyses all answers and creates sector insight reports
- We combine your answers with everyone else's - no one can tell which ones came from you or which organisation you work for
- All published reports are fully anonymised
What this means for you
- You won't be contacted for sales or marketing because of this research
- Your answers can't be traced back to you or your organisation in any reports
- We follow strict rules to keep your information safe
What information we collect
Your answers about:
- How patient and clinician engagement shapes your organisation's commercial decisions
- Your experiences of when involvement helped or hindered outcomes
- Methods your organisation uses
- How stakeholder input influences business and investment decisions
- Enablers and barriers to effective engagement
Basic information about you:
- Your professional role
- Your organisation type, size, and location
- Your years of experience in the sector
- Your main area of practice
Your contact details (only if you choose):
- Your name and email address
- Only if you want to hear about results, get CPD confirmation, or learn about other research opportunities
Important: We don't ask for your organisation name or any other identifiers. We've designed the survey so that even if someone read all your answers together, they shouldn't be able to identify you or your organisation. However, if you provide very specific details in free-text responses, there's a small chance someone familiar with your work might recognise them.
Making your answers anonymous
How we protect your identity:
- We remove any names or identifying details before writing our report
- We check all free-text comments to remove any identifying information (like specific product names, project names, or organisation details you might mention)
- We aggregate responses and report patterns about how listening shapes commercial decisions across the sector
- Even if someone read the report, they couldn't tell which answers were yours or which organisation you represent
Quality checks: We may review responses to ensure data quality. If we do this, we only use the minimum information needed and delete working files afterwards.
Why we can use your information
This is research: We're conducting this research to understand how patient and clinician engagement shapes commercial decisions across the health and life sciences sector. This helps organisations develop better approaches, build stronger business cases, and supports sector improvement.
We're allowed to use your information because:
- We have a legitimate interest in conducting research that supports better health research practices and stakeholder engagement across the commercial health sector
- We've balanced this against your privacy rights and believe the research benefits justify the minimal privacy impact
- We keep your information as safe as we can
- Your participation is entirely voluntary
Your contact details: Only if you choose to give them to us. You can change your mind anytime by emailing help@thiscovery.org.
Who sees your information
Internal access:
- Only Thiscovery research team members directly involved in this project
- All team members are trained in data protection and research ethics
We will share:
- Fully anonymised sector insight reports (publicly available)
- Aggregated findings with no identifying information
We will NOT share:
- Your individual survey responses
- Your name or contact details
- Information that could identify you or your organisation
- Any data with commercial organisations for marketing purposes
Your contact details are completely separate:
The survey data and your contact details (name and email) are stored separately:
- Survey data: Analysed in aggregate and reported anonymously
- Contact details: Only used for the purposes you agree to (e.g., sending results summary, CPD confirmation)
How long we keep your information
Your survey answers: We keep any identifiable details for up to 6 months after the project ends, then remove identifying information and keep anonymous answers for up to 5 years to support ongoing sector insight analysis
Summary reports (with no names or organisations identified): We may keep these indefinitely as they support sector development and cannot identify anyone
Your email (if you give it): Until you ask us to delete it, or automatically after 24 months if you haven't engaged with Thiscovery communications
Want us to delete your information? Email us at help@thiscovery.org and we'll do it promptly.
Your choices
You can:
- Stop taking part at any time
- Skip questions you don't want to answer
- Ask to see what information we have about you
- Ask us to fix wrong information
- Ask us to delete your information
- Complain if you're not happy
To do any of these: Email us at help@thiscovery.org
Important things to know
- If you don't give us contact details, we may not be able to identify and remove your survey answers later (because we won't know which answers are yours)
- Once we create anonymised summary reports, we can't remove your contribution from those reports
- If you provide very specific details in free-text responses, there's a small chance they could be recognisable – but we will ensure any quotes used in reports are anonymous.
How we keep your information safe
We keep things separate:
- Your contact details are kept separate from your survey answers
- Your survey answers use a unique code instead of your name
- This means we can't link your name to your answers unless you ask us to (e.g., to withdraw)
We use secure systems:
- All information is encrypted (scrambled) and stored safely
- Only authorised research team members can access the data
- We use certified deletion methods when we remove data
Important: Sending information over the internet is never 100% safe. We do our best to protect it, but we can't promise complete security.
Research results
If you give us your contact details, we'll share:
- A summary of what the research found about how patient and clinician engagement shapes commercial decisions in health and life sciences organisations
- Key insights about business value, enablers and barriers
- Sector-wide patterns and recommendations
Results will also be published openly on the Thiscovery website and may be shared at sector conferences or in professional publications.
Contact us
Questions about the survey: Email us at help@thiscovery.org
Data protection questions: Data Protection Officer at dpo@thiscovery.org
Complaints about the research: If you're not happy and want to contact someone independent, please contact research.governance@thiscovery.org
Data protection problems: Information Commissioner's Office - ico.org.uk
Your agreement
By taking part in this survey, you agree that:
- Thiscovery can use your anonymised answers for research about how patient and clinician engagement shapes commercial decisions in health and life sciences organisations
- You understand your information will be handled as described above
- You're participating voluntarily and can withdraw at any time
Thank you for helping us understand how listening to patients and clinicians shapes commercial decision-making across the health and life sciences sector.