Principles of use
All MRC-funded principal investigators, programme leaders and fellows are required to provide information about outputs arising from their work annually during the period of the award and normally for at least 5 years after the award has terminated. The MRC uses Researchfish, an online system to capture this information. These principles apply to information attributed to MRC awards and outline how the MRC will use the information submitted. Other organisations participating in Researchfish may have different principles of use for data allocated to their awards.
The Data Protection Act
The MRC complies with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 with regard to the collection, storage, processing and disclosure of personal information and is committed to upholding the Act’s core data protection principles.
The Researchfish system holds information about the grants awarded to you drawn from the MRC research management systems, including your email contact details and your host institution. This information is used in combination with the output information reported via Researchfish to:
- Carry out statistical analysis in relation to the evaluation of research and the study of trends.
- Operate the Researchfish system (including notifying you of changes to the system, system downtime, and deadlines for submission of output information).
- Report to host institutions on progress in gathering output data.
By agreeing to these principles of use, and by accessing the system, you have explicitly consented to your personal data being processed by us in this way and stored on the system and associated internal systems. To maintain public accountability, the MRC may publish details of MRC-funded programmes. Information we may disclose includes:
- the title of your award;
- your name;
- the institution at which you are studying or working;
- the dates associated with your award;
- the type of award;
- the funding provided to the institution;
- a description of your subject or study or research (e.g. project summary/abstract);
- output informationsubmitted.
Researchfish provides the ability for you to update your email contact details for the purposes of interacting with the Researchfish system, and you can request amendment of any other details displayed in the system. If you wish to change the email address that research councils primarily use to contact you then you must update your details via JeS (tel: +44 (0) 1793 44 4164).
As the information you provide in your Researchfish submission may be published you should avoid specifically identifying individuals involved in the work, unless this information is already in the public domain (such as thenames of co-authors listed on publications).
Output information entered into the “My Portfolio” section of Researchfish is accessible only by you and those that you allow access to these details via the delegation function. This information cannot be viewed by funders or host institutions.
Only when information is allocated to awards (copied from the “My Portfolio” section into individual or groups of grants/programmes/fellowships) can this information be accessed by organisations that participate in Researchfish. Funding organisations can access all information allocated to awards they contribute funding to, and institutions subscribing to Researchfish can access all information allocated to all awards held by their organisation. In future it is anticipated that subscribing centres and networks will be able to access all information allocated to awards that formally are members of that network or centre.
Once a year the MRC will request that all output information in Researchfish is reviewed, allocation to awards is completed and that principal investigators indicate this has been done by completing the submission process.
The MRC may analyse information allocated to MRC awards and share this information with other organisations. However, the MRC will only publish information which is attributed to an MRC grant, programme or fellowship and for which the submission process has been completed.
Freedom of Information
The MRC aims to be as open as possible in informing others how we conduct our business through our publications, our website and face-to-face discussions.
As outlined above the MRC may publish in full any information submitted to it via Researchfish. Researchers are advised to ensure that they do not disclose data that conflicts with agreements they may have with the MRC or third parties, is sensitive, or is considered confidential. Further guidance can be sought from university research support offices orunit administrators.
Final grant report
To avoid duplication of effort the MRC no longer requests a final report across the majority of its awards (separate reporting processes may be required for some funding mechanisms e.g. NPRI awards, experimental medicine awards and clinical trial grants).
How MRC will use the data submitted via Researchfish
The objective of MRC e-Val is to strengthen the evidence base the MRC has to draw upon for strategic decision-making, for evaluating progress, and to better understand the research system.
Information submitted via Reseachfish may be published under Research Council initiatives which aim to make the outputs and outcomes of publicly funded research more accessible to the research community and others. Further information on current initiatives is provided below. Information submitted via Researchfish will also be published in the form of analyses and evaluations undertaken by the MRC, case studies, often in specific areas of research and to demonstrate key outputs from MRC-funded research. Researchers should be aware that text provided may be quoted, in full or in part and attributed to them. By submitting data to MRC e-Val it is assumed that researchers consent to this onward dissemination of results.
Data from Researchfish will be returned to research organisations holding the awardeach year. These principles of use apply only to the way in which the MRC will use and publish data collected via Researchfishand researchers should contact their local administrator for guidance on how the data might be used within their own organisation.
From 2012 the output data formally submitted via MRC e-Val will be loaded into the RCUK “Gateway to Research”. The RCUK Gateway to Research website will publish grant and output information from across all research councils. This information will be open for anyone to search and download. Principal Investigators should understand that outputs formally submitted via Researchfish may be published verbatim and attributed online via the RCUK Gateway to Research website.
From 2012 data about publications allocated to MRC awards may be shared with Europe PubMed Central (formerly UK PubMed Central). Linkages between publications and funding awards reported via Researchfish may be copied into Europe PubMed Central, and linkages established in Europe PubMed Central or extracted from publication acknowledgements may be copied into Researchfish. This is again to reduce the duplicate reporting of these linkages. However Principal Investigators should understand that these linkages will be shared across the two datasets.
If you have any questions about this policy, or wish to change any details displayed in the system please email evaluation@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk
