Data protection statement and privacy notice for research participants – Performing the Political project

Published 21.11.2023 | Updated 17.1.2024

Information for the research participant and request to participate in research

You are requested to participate in a research project that aims to expand the notion of the political in music professionalism by promoting eco-artistic imagination and transformative systems thinking within higher music education. The research is carried out with international partners and experts in Nordic music academies and with students, teachers and directors of performance degree programmes at the Sibelius Academy.

The research will generate knowledge and create shared systemic visions for the development of higher education in music. The research project is not investigating or evaluating students’ artistic work or teachers’ teaching, nor the personal opinions and political views of students, teachers or educational leaders.

The purpose of this data protection statement and privacy notice is to provide information about the research project, and the collection, processing and handling of the personal data in this research. Participation in the research and the consent to process personal data is voluntary.

You can refuse to participate in the research or discontinue your participation at any time without reporting the reason and without consequences. If you wish to discontinue your participation in the study, you can still continue with the participatory processes, interventions and workshops of the project if they are part of your study programme or work.

The research is funded by the Scientific Council for Social Sciences and Humanities, Research Council of Finland. No remuneration is paid, or other compensation is provided for participation in the research.

1. The data controller of the research and contact details of responsible researchers

Data controller: University of the Arts Helsinki, PL 1, 00097 UNIARTS, business ID 2500305-6.

Contact details of responsible researchers

Principal investigator (PI): Tuulikki Laes, Academy Research Fellow, Research Institute, Uniarts Helsinki, tuulikki.laes(at)uniarts.fi, +358407104373. The PI is responsible for conducting the research and complying with the regulations concerning the processing of personal data.

Contact person: Taru Koivisto, Postdoctoral researcher, Research Institute, Uniarts Helsinki, taru.koivisto(at)uniarts.fi, +358503141302. The contact person answers research participants’ questions about the research on request.

Research participants may address all inquiries regarding the processing of personal data in this research and notification of discontinuation of participation in the research to the above-mentioned responsible persons who are authorized to process personal data in this research.

2. Contact details of the Data Protection Officer

The University of the Arts Data Protection Officer can be contacted by email: tietosuoja(at)uniarts.fi

3. Description of the research project

Performing the Political: Public Pedagogy in Higher Music Education research project aims to expand the notion of the political in music professionalism by promoting eco-artistic imagination and transformative systems thinking within higher music education.

Following the idea of public pedagogy, the project will implement alternative performance practices in collaboration for example with folk music, jazz, classical, music technology, and global music programmes. Through participatory processes, the research project will co-create new knowledge and shared systemic visions for the reinforcement of music professionalism and socially relevant, responsible higher music education policies. The research project is not investigating or evaluating students’ artistic work or teachers’ teaching, nor the personal opinions and political views of students, teachers, or educational leaders.

In the first phase of the research project, data will be collected through a questionnaire and interviews with the teachers and management in Nordic higher education institutions. The questionnaire will take approximately 15–20 minutes to complete and interviews will take approximately 60–90 minutes (group interviews) and 45–60 minutes (individual interviews).

As a rule, the data will be collected by the responsible project researchers, but in the first phase of the research project interviews may also be conducted by other researchers employed by the research project.

In the second phase of the project, 2–3 artistic-pedagogical interventions will be carried out with teachers and students in performance degree programmes at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki and with external partners. The data for the second phase of the project will be collected by the project researchers. The interventions will last approximately 3–4 months and will, as far as possible, be integrated into the existing study modules in the programmes. The participatory processes of the interventions will be observed and their public outputs will be videoed. Individual and group interviews will also be conducted in connection with the interventions.

In the third phase of the research project, three systems analysis visioning workshops will be organised with the Sibelius Academy management and teachers, with the participation of a collaborative researcher from the IIASA research centre. The required time slot for a participant is between 90 and 120 minutes for each workshop. Research data for the third phase of the project will be collected by the project researchers and the collaborating researcher. The outputs of the previous phases of the research project will serve as a basis for the workshops. In addition, the data will be collected through the project researchers’ autoethnography, i.e. experiential field notes.

The data of the research will be analysed qualitatively and, with the exception of video data, the analysis will always be carried out on anonymised or pseudonymised data. In addition to the responsible project researchers, data from the research project can be analysed by collaborating researchers involved in the project. The data will be stored in the Uniarts Helsinki digital and protected systems, accessible only to the project researchers and, where applicable, to the first and third-phase collaborators who have Uniarts Helsinki logins for these systems. Identifiable video data will be processed and analysed only by project researchers who are authorized to process the personal data of the research project and have access to the video data.

The outcomes of the research project include peer-reviewed scientific publications, conference and seminar presentations, participatory citizen panels and educational materials, where research material can be cited with any identifying personal data removed from the material. Throughout the research project, participants will be instructed that questionnaires, interviews, video material, or workshop outputs should not contain sensitive data. Any sensitive data that may appear during the data collection will be removed from the data at the anonymisation stage during the transcription of the data, and will not be analysed in the project.

The outcomes of the research will be reported on the project website in addition to the research publications. The reporting of results will include videos presenting the research project for communication, teaching and lecturing purposes. The release of these videos for public use will be subject to separate consent from the research participants and will be accompanied by a separate privacy notice for the processing of the associated personal data.

The data of the research project will be destroyed after the completion of the project, at the end of the archiving obligation specified in the Data Management Plan. The data collected in the research project will not be used in other research projects or for research or other activities outside the project. As an exception, the questionnaire and interview material collected in the first part of the research (Nordic study) will be archived for educational and research purposes in the Finnish Social Science Data Archive, and the video material of the public intervention performances produced in the second part of the research (Intervention study) will be archived in a system maintained by the University of the Arts.

4. Personal data to be collected and processed in the research

The Nordic questionnaire will be answered anonymously. For other research data and reporting, data on individuals will be anonymised or pseudonymised, i.e. processed in such a way that the personal data can no longer be linked to a specific individual without further information. The project’s video material is identifiable data, i.e. the individuals appearing in it may be identified (see paragraph 10).

In the Nordic questionnaire in the first phase of the research project, direct personal data will not be collected, but it is possible that the open-ended responses to the questionnaire may contain identifiable information. Such information, which could lead to the identification of respondents, will be anonymised or deleted before the analysis of the questionnaire data. In the other phases of the research, personal data (contact details: name, telephone number, email) will be collected when consent forms are signed. These personal data will be destroyed during the transcription process after anonymisation of the data, i.e. they will not be used for data analysis or reporting of research results.

As an exception to the other research material, the production of video data for the study will generate identifiable personal data. This will be communicated to the participants prior to the second phase Intervention study through a separate privacy notice and when they sign the consent forms.

5. Processors of personal data

• responsible project researchers and collaborative researchers employed by the university
• Surveypal service, which is used to carry out the questionnaire and provide written information on the research project
• data are also processed on the university computers in Microsoft O365

6. Personal data processed in the research

Sensitive personal data is not processed in the research. This privacy notice is published on the research website, to which the participants have been given a direct link via an online questionnaire and/or email.

Inviting people to participate in the research will be done as follows: 1) participants in the first phase of the research project for the expert interviews with university management and teachers will be selected by snowball sampling through the Nordic partners of the research, i.e. researchers in universities and other experts, 2) participants for the Nordic questionnaire in the first phase of the research project will be invited to respond anonymously to the questionnaire through the public email lists of universities and national networks and through snowball sampling, 3) participants in the intervention processes of the second phase of the research project will be invited to participate in the research through the public email lists of the Sibelius Academy and its external partners and other existing information and communication channels and networking technologies, and 4) representatives of the University of the Arts Helsinki management, teachers and other experts participating in the visioning workshops of the third phase of the research project will be invited to participate in the research via public email lists and other existing information and communication channels, as well as via networking and snowball sampling where appropriate.

Questionnaire, observations and interviews

Personal data will be collected through questionnaire, observations and interviews only to the extent necessary for the purpose of the research. The questionnaire will be conducted anonymously on the Surveypal service. For security reasons, Surveypal will store the IP address of the respondent for 7 days, after which it will be deleted. In addition to verbal information about the survey (utilised in other data collection methods except for the anonymised questionnaire), information to the respondents will be provided via the Surveypal service and the project website.

No direct personal data will be collected in the Nordic questionnaire conducted in the research project. However, it is possible that the responses may contain identifiable information, which will be anonymised or deleted. The personal data collected during interviews and observations are: 1) name, 2) email, 3) telephone number. The personal data collected will not be used for reporting the research results. Any personal data related to the interviews will be deleted during transcription as part of the anonymisation process.

Video recordings

Video recordings of the artistic performances of the intervention study will generate a personal data register of the participants in the study. The password-protected video recordings are identifiable and remain identifiable throughout the study. The University of the Arts Helsinki will ensure the secure storage of the video data during the analysis phase. The data will not be combined with other data, such as registry data.

7. Legal grounds for processing personal data in research/archiving (Archives Act 831/1994)

The processing of personal data is based on the General Data Protection Regulation (EU Data Protection Regulation 2016/679), a task of public interest, scientific or historical research or statistics (Data Protection Act, 1050/2018, Article 4, 3).

8. Transfer of personal data outside the EU/EEA area

Personal data collected during the research will not be transferred to countries outside the EU/EEA. Personal data will be treated confidentially and carefully. When using any external transcription or video editing services, responsible project researchers will discuss with the service provider the restrictions on the transfer of personal data and, if necessary, enter into a DPA (Data Processing Agreement).

9. Protection and identifiability of personal data, duration of processing

The personal data processed in the research are protected by a username and password. Textual data is processed in the University of the Arts’ Microsoft O365 service, which is also protected by a username and password. Any manual data will be stored in a locked cabinet, accessible only to the persons responsible for the study and personal data.

Members of the research team have completed data protection training. A prior ethical review has been carried out.

Data from the questionnaire, observation and interviews are collected without direct personal identifications. Personal data collected from the participants in the consent forms in relation to interviews, observations, interventions and workshops will be kept until the data are anonymised at the transcription stage. Video data are identifiable, i.e. the participant can be identified from the data (see section 10).

10. Rights of the data subjects and derogation of the rights

According to the General Data Protection Regulation, data subjects (ie., research participants) have the right to access their data, rectify data, request the erasure of the data and to be forgotten, request to restrict data processing, transfer data from one system to another, object to data processing and not be subject to automated decision-making.

The rights described in this paragraph may be derogated from in certain individual cases on the grounds laid down in the General Data Protection Regulation and the Finnish Data Protection Act, to the extent that the rights prevent the fulfillment of a scientific or historical research purpose or a statistical purpose or make it very difficult to achieve such a purpose. The need to derogate from the rights is always assessed on a case-by-case basis, but this study does not, in principle, derogate from these rights.

The video material recorded during the research, i.e. the public presentations of the second phase of the study interventions, will be stored and archived in an identifiable format, which means that the participant can be identified. As other participants will also be identifiable from the video, there will be no possibility to review and correct the video material after the research consent has been granted by the participant. Participants also do not have the possibility to request the removal of the video data, as this would require the removal/deletion of the entire video and would significantly complicate the conduct of the research. The public use of the video material for research-related communication, teaching and lectures requires the separate consent of the intervention study participants and a separate privacy notice has been issued for the use of the video material.

The data subject has the right to lodge a complaint, in particular to the supervisory authority in the place where he or she has his or her place of residence or work if he or she considers that the processing of personal data infringes the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679. In Finland, the supervisory authority is the Data Protection Ombudsman.

Profiling is not applied in this study.

A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) has been carried out as part of the implementation of the processing principles under the GDPR. The DPIA examined the collecting, protecting, and processing of personal data, the risks associated with the processing, and the means to manage them, as well as the implementation of the processing principles under the GDPR, in particular in relation to the project’s video data. Both the data protection impact assessment and the privacy notice will be reviewed and, if necessary, updated on an ongoing basis.

Contact details of the Data Protection Ombudsman

Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman

Address: Ratapihantie 9, 6th floor, 00520 Helsinki, Finland

Postal address: P.O. Box 800, 00521 Helsinki, Finland

Telephone: 029 56 66700

E-mail: tietosuoja(at)om.fi