Survey on the career paths of postdoctoral researchers
Data protection
This survey is conducted in accordance with the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). The main safeguards include:
- Invitation email address: the institutional email address held in your institution's records is used to administer the survey (that is, to send you the invitation and any reminders) and to match your responses with the administrative information provided by your institution (for example, the institution and the type of position on record). It is not used for any other purpose. It is separated from your responses as soon as the data are downloaded and is deleted once it is no longer needed for data collection and survey administration (see "Deletion of contact details" below).
- Institutional email address(es) provided in the questionnaire: If you are affiliated with more than one participating institution, the questionnaire asks for the institutional email address(es) you use at the other institution(s). This is used solely to link your single response to the correct institutions and to avoid counting you more than once. These addresses are separated from your responses immediately after this matching and are not used for any other purpose.
- Deletion of contact details: Your name and email address(es) are never shared between partner institutions. They are deleted from the survey platform (Qualtrics, servers in Germany) as soon as they are no longer needed for data collection (Qualtrics retains security backups for at most 90 days after deletion) and from FORS's contact-management system (Salesforce, servers in Switzerland) within 30 days after the participating institutions have verified the delivered data.
- Survey responses: Your responses are collected via Qualtrics, on secure servers in Germany and under GDPR-compliant conditions. Once data collection is complete, the responses are downloaded, pseudonymised (directly identifying information is removed and certain variables are grouped to limit the risk of re-identification) and stored on FORS servers in Switzerland (hosted by the University of Lausanne). The pseudonymised data are kept without a fixed time limit for research purposes.
- Follow-up contact (only if you consent): If you agree to be contacted for a possible follow-up survey, the personal email address you provide is stored together with your personal identifier (login) in a key that is kept securely by FORS. This key allows your email address to be separated from your responses as soon as the data are downloaded, while still allowing your answers to be linked across the different survey waves and allowing us to invite you to a follow-up survey, without leaving your email address attached to the data. Follow-up surveys may be conducted by FORS or by one or more of the participating institutions; in the latter case, this key (your personal email address and personal identifier) will be transferred securely to the institution conducting the follow-up survey. Your details are kept for a maximum of 15 years and are deleted if no follow-up survey takes place within five years. You may withdraw your consent at any time, which will result in their deletion.
- Results: All results are presented in aggregate form in reports and publications, so that no individual can be identified.
You can exercise your data-protection rights (including access, correction and deletion, and withdrawal of your consent to be recontacted) at any time by writing to postdocsurvey@forscenter.ch. Please note, however, that once your responses have been pseudonymised and the key linking them to your identity has been deleted, we are no longer able to identify your data; from that point on, it is no longer possible to retrieve, correct or delete your individual responses.
For a full explanation of how your personal data is collected, processed, stored and protected, please consult the detailed information document.
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