With your consent, the interview will be audio-recorded for accuracy and reference purposes. The recording will be kept confidential and will only be accessed by authorised personnel involved in the research team. Interview data will be used on an identifiable or pseudo-anonymous basis (this means, you will be referred to using a chosen or assigned pseudonym) in reporting, depending upon your preferences. Unless you consent to it, there will be no mention of names. Data will be reduced or changed to conceal your identity, wherever possible, however due to the nature of the project, some individuals may be aware of your participation in the research and, therefore, full anonymity cannot be guaranteed.
If you give consent, the interview audio will be recorded and stored securely and kept private until it has been transcribed (what you say is written out). At this point the recordings will be deleted. The interview transcript will be saved in electronic form in encrypted folders on a password-protected computer with a secure cloud-based backup. Anonymous excerpts from the interviews will be used to inform the project and might be presented in the findings of the PhD research, including academic and non-academic outputs from this project.
Your personal contact details (e.g. name, email address, phone number) will be kept in a secure database until January 2027, to the end of my PhD research, in case I need to invite you to take part in a follow-up interview or ask for clarification on points. This information will not be shared with anyone. After this date, your personal details will be destroyed (unless you specify you are happy for me to keep your contact details to share outputs of the research). Research data (pseudonymised interview transcripts, pseudonymised observation notes etc.) will be kept on the University of Exeter’s secure data storage for 6 years after the end of the project (December 2032), to allow for follow-up studies and the writing up of academic articles etc. from this work. Some anonymised research data may be stored indefinitely the University of Exeter’s open access archive.
If you wish to have your personal contact details or research data deleted sooner than this, please contact me via the email address at the end of this document and specify what information you wish to be deleted.
The University of Exeter processes personal data for the purposes of carrying out research in the public interest. We will endeavour to be transparent about its processing of your personal data and this information sheet should provide a clear explanation of this. If you do have any queries about the University’s processing of your personal data that cannot be resolved by the research team, further information may be obtained from the University’s Data Protection Officer by emailing informationgovernance@exeter.ac.uk or at www.exeter.ac.uk/departments/cgr/ig/.
If you change your mind about taking part, you can withdraw from the research at any time before January 2026. If you have already completed the interview, you can request that your data (e.g. your interview responses) is withdrawn. Following this request, I will delete your data and will not use it in the study analysis or final write up. Once the thesis and any other outputs have been published, it will not be possible to withdraw your data.
If you choose to withdraw from the study, please email one of the research team using the contact details below. You do not have to give a reason for withdrawing and there will be no consequences to you for doing so.
The results from this research will be included in my PhD thesis. In addition, the findings may be presented at conferences and published in academic journals. In all cases, your name will not be included and any information you give us won’t be linked to you – if this is what you choose. A summary of the results will be sent to you by email/WhatsApp/post if you are interested.
Contact for any questions or requests regarding your participation in this research
You are encouraged to ask any questions relating to the study via the contact details below. Please save a copy of this information sheet. If you change your mind about taking part, you can withdraw from the research by contacting us below. After the research is published it is not possible to withdraw your anonymised data.
Veronica White, PhD researcher, vmw210 [at] exeter.ac.uk
Saffron O’Neill, primary supervisor, s.oneill [at] exeter.ac.uk
You can also contact the University Research Ethics & Governance Team at cgr-reg@exeter.ac.uk if you wish to make a complaint or comment, or contact Dr Antony Walsh (A.Walsh3@exeter.ac.uk, 01392 726621).
Thank you for your interest in taking part in this project!