Data Privacy

The Open-Oxford-Cambridge Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership (AHRC DTP) is a partnership of three institutions (Open University, University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford) and a single competition is operated on an annual basis in order to determine which students from the three institutions will be awarded studentships to begin in the following academic year. All applicants who are put forward for consideration for a studentship therefore have their application materials assessed and reviewed by subject panels and the Management Board. The membership of these bodies consists of academic members of staff drawn from the three institutions that make up the partnership.

The University of Oxford, as lead administrative partner and home to the DTP’s shared consortium team, administers the DTP website on behalf of all the partners.

We (Open, Oxford and Cambridge Universities) are joint data controllers in respect of the DTP. We are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This notice describes how we collect and use your personal data submitted to us online, by email, on paper or face-to-face, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and associated data protection legislation.

Types and Use of Personal Data Collected

In the course of completing the DTP's Application Form and accessing this website, you have provided information about yourself (‘personal data’).

Information that we collect about your visit to this website includes: Type of device and unique device identifier; IP address; Browser type and version; Time zone; Browser plug-in types; Operating system; Mobile Network information and platform; URLs (web addresses) of pages visited; Clicks around the website; Page response times; Download errors; Length of visit; and Page interaction. This information is provided to us by your browser when you visit a webpage and passed to our third-party service provider, Google Analytics in order to better operate the website.

In order for you to be considered for an Open-Oxford-Cambridge DTP studentship, your personal data and application materials will be processed by members of staff at the three institutions within the partnership who are involved in the DTP selection process. Together, we need to process your data for the purpose of meeting our legitimate interests in providing scholarships to eligible students.

We will only use your data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another related reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your data for an unrelated purpose, we will seek your consent to use it for that new purpose.

Who has access to your data?                          

Access to your data within each University will be provided to those who need to view it as part of their work in carrying out the purposes described above.

We may also share your data with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and other external funding bodies for the purpose of administering the studentships. A list of the external funding bodies is available upon request.

Where we share your data with a third party, we will seek to share the minimum amount necessary.

Retaining your data

We will only retain your data for as long as we need it to meet our purposes, including any relating to legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. 

All applicant materials for unsuccessful candidates will be securely disposed of 12 months after the end of the application process. Applicant materials for successful candidates who accept and commence studentships will form a part of the student file and be used for reference and reporting purposes (to the Open-Oxford-Cambridge DTP’s Management Board, the Open University, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and other external funding bodies as relevant).

Where we store and use your data

Your data will be held on secure servers and/or on our premises within the UK. Electronic data may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"), for example, if we communicate with you using a cloud based service provider that operates outside the EEA.

Such transfers will only take place if one of the following applies:

  • the country receiving the data is considered by the EU to provide an adequate level of data protection;
  • the organisation receiving the data is covered by an arrangement recognised by the EU as providing an adequate standard of data protection e.g. transfers to companies that are certified under the EU US Privacy Shield;
  • the transfer is governed by approved contractual clauses;
  • the transfer has your consent;
  • the transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract with you or to take steps requested by you prior to entering into that contract; or
  • the transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract with another person, which is in your interests.

Your rights                                     

You have the following rights in relation to the personal data that we hold about you:

  • The right to request access to your data (commonly known as a "subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of your data and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • The right to request correction of your data. This enables you to ask us to correct any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you.
  • The right to request erasure of your data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove your data in certain circumstances for example, if you consider that there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  • The right to object to the processing of your data, where we are processing it to meet our public tasks or legitimate interests (or the legitimate interests of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your data for direct marketing purposes.
  • The right to request that the processing of your data is restricted. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your data, for example, if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your data to another party.

Further information on these rights is available from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Contact

If you wish to raise any queries or concerns about our use of your data, please contact us at manager@oocdtp.ac.uk or Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP Manager, c/o Humanities Education Support Team, Humanities Division, Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6GG.

For general information on how the Open University, University of Cambridge and University of Oxford each use your personal data as an applicant, see respectively https://help.open.ac.uk/documents/policies/privacy-notice, https://www.information-compliance.admin.cam.ac.uk/data-protection/applicant-data and http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/councilsec/compliance/gdpr/privacynotices/postgraduate/.