Privacy statement

The purpose of this notice is to give you a clear explanation of how the UK Gut-Immune-Brain Axis Network+ (GIBA Network+) will collect and use the personal information that you provide to us.  Personal Information means any information that can identify you.

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The GIBA Network+ is hosted and coordinated by the University of Southampton, which is the data controller. Please refer to the University’s privacy notice for further privacy information.  

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Where do we get your information from?

We collect your information directly from you when you sign up to the GIBA Network+ and complete our questionnaire.

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Why do we collect your information and what information do we collect?

The GIBA Network + is intended to bring together all individuals with an interest in national GIBA research, you can find out more about our mission by clicking here. To build, maintain and develop the network, we ask for personal information from interested parties joining our network via our online form.
 

We may collect and store the following personal data where you have signed up to join our network.

In order to register you we collect your:

• Name

• Contact details (e-mail address)

• Sector

• Industry
   

We collect this information so we can send you correspondence and communication about our network events, research opportunities and newsletters, and respond to any complaints you make.
 

We will also invite you to include your:

• Age bracket

• Institution

• Geographical location

• Career stage

• Disability

• Ethnicity

• Gender

• Caring responsibilities
   

This will help us to understand the overall network better in terms of demographic information and to monitor our performance in inclusivity. 

Where you have been involved in our engagement activities and provided consent for us to do so, we will collect:

• Visual information about you, including photographs and videos. This will be collected during events, such as workshops, to promote the outcomes of these activities, or during the creation of press releases about the Network.
   

Sensitive Information

When you sign up with our network, we will ask you to provide some information that might be sensitive (known as Special Category data) to understand the overall network better in terms of demographic information and to monitor our performance in inclusivity.
 

Any information that you supply will be collected separately to your identity information and anonymised so that it cannot link back to you or identify you.
 

These categories in our form are:

• Caring responsibilities

• Disability

• Gender

• Ethnicity
   

How we will contact you

For us to keep you up to date with news about the network’s work and the impact it has created we will contact you by email, newsletters and through our social media channels.  You can contact us at any time via contact@giba-uk.org to ask us to change how we communicate with you, or to stop all communications.
 

Do we share your personal information?

The Network’s third parties include member universities and its funding body, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council – part of UK Research and Innovation.
 

We may share your information with a third party in the following circumstances:

• Social Media and Press

  • If you consent to us using your image on our website, on social media platforms or in the media, for promotional purposes.

• Communicating with the Network

  • We use Mailchimp to send emails to Network members. The mailing list contains names and email addresses. For more information on Mailchimp, see its privacy statement here.

  • Members can unsubscribe from these emails at any time by clicking the link in the footer of a communication.

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How long your data is stored for

We will retain the information we collect about you for the network for the length of the project. If you unsubscribe from the emails we send you, we will delete your data.

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Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have processed your personal information, please in the first instance contact us (contact@giba-uk.org), or the University’s Data Protection team via data.protection@soton.ac.uk  

 

Updates to the Privacy Notice

We may at amend this Privacy Notice from time to time. This Privacy Notice was last updated in June 2025.