Data protection and privacy in research

Data privacy education: ROSI educates researchers (students and research assistants) involved in collaborative projects on GDPR guidelines through workshops and individual consultations, with a focus on handling personal data and ethically managing it throughout the research project. All researchers in ROSI-affiliated projects must sign ROSI’s GDPR guidelines, committing to data-compliant practices in their research.

Data collection: ROSI supports researchers in data collection by providing classic, non-internet-enabled recording devices, ensuring privacy compliance. It also offers templates for consent forms and information letters tailored to specific research needs, which ensures that participants are fully informed and can consent to or decline participation in quantitative surveys or qualitative interviews. During this process, it fully educates them about their rights under the GDPR.

Anonymization: To protect personal data, researchers render collected data anonymous at the earliest opportunity, ensuring they no longer fall under stringent GDPR rules. ROSI continues to maintain high standards of data privacy even post-anonymization, with all personal data deleted permanently after this process.

Data analysis: The research tools available to researchers are hosted by the University, ensuring that data remain secure and are never accessible to third parties. For software that does not meet these criteria (e.g., transcription software f4x), data protection agreements are in place to ensure data security.

Long-term storage In adherence to good scientific practice, ROSI securely stores anonymized datasets and participants’ consent forms on the University of Hamburg’s servers for potential future validation. Access to this data is restricted to ROSI employees, who are also bound by confidentiality agreements.

Why do we collect research data?

The Research Office for Social Innovation collects research data on behalf of its collaboration partners. The concerns of these—mostly civil society—stakeholders are investigated by research teams using established social science methods (interviews, online surveys, group discussions etc.) and analyzed (statistical analyses, text interpretation etc.).

How do we handle research data?

Collection

Research data are collected solely on a voluntary basis. Our employees commit to adhering to all applicable data protection regulations. We collect only data relevant to addressing the research questions. For certain types of surveys, written consent is obtained from participants to demonstrate that they have agreed to the survey and scientific use of the collected data.

Analysis and presentation

Collected research data are rendered anonymous following social science standards. Results are presented exclusively in anonymized form, meaning that no conclusions can be drawn about individual participants from the findings.

Storage

Contact information for participants is kept solely for the purpose of communication for the duration of the project and stored separately from survey data. Original data are securely stored at the Research Office for Social Innovation so they can be reviewed and potentially used later with the collaboration partner’s permission by students or academic staff at the University of Hamburg.