Privacy policy

At Advanced Oxford, we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

We want you to understand your rights and how we use your personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, sign up to our newsletter, attend our events, join our policy groups or become members. It sets out how we use that information, when we may share it with others and how we keep it secure.

We may update this policy from time to time, so please check this page periodically to make sure you are happy with any changes.

If you have any questions about this policy or our privacy practices, please email us at [email protected].

Advanced Oxford is a community interest company that brings together businesses, research institutions and public bodies across Oxfordshire’s science, technology and innovation ecosystem. Our vision is for Oxfordshire to be the most dynamic innovation economy in the UK and the best place to start and grow a science-based business.

Advanced Oxford is registered in England and Wales as a community interest company (company number 10976883). Our registered address is Wood Centre For Innovation Quarry Road, Headington, Oxford, England, OX3 8SB. 

For the purposes of data protection law, Advanced Oxford is the data controller for the personal information described in this policy.

We only process your personal data where we have a lawful basis to do so. The lawful bases we rely on are:

• Consent, for example where you ask to receive our newsletter or updates about our events, research and policy work.
• Contract, where we need to process your data to provide a service you have signed up to, such as membership or an event booking.
• Legitimate interests, where processing is necessary for us to run Advanced Oxford and support our members and partners in ways you would reasonably expect, and where your rights do not override those interests.
• Legal obligation, where we are required to process or disclose information by law, for example in response to a valid request from a regulator or law enforcement body.

We collect information about you when you:

• use our website or complete a form on it
• sign up to our newsletter or other email updates
• register for or attend one of our events
• apply for or hold membership of Advanced Oxford
• take part in one of our policy groups, or are featured in member profiles or spotlight articles
• contact us by email, phone or social media

The personal information we collect may include your name, job title, organisation, email address, phone number, postal address, IP address, and information about the pages you visit on our website and when.

• We use HubSpot to manage our contacts and send our communications. Personal data submitted through our website or other communications may be stored and processed securely within HubSpot in line with data protection law.
• If you book a paid place at one of our events, your card details are not held by us. Payments are processed by our third party provider, which specialises in the secure capture and processing of card payments.

We use your information for the purposes below. We rely on our legitimate interests in supporting Oxfordshire’s innovation ecosystem for most of these, except for email marketing and non-essential cookies, where we rely on your consent. We may use your information to:

• process event registrations and manage attendance
• manage your membership and carry out our obligations under any agreement between you and us
• administer our policy groups and share relevant papers and updates with group members
• publish member profiles, spotlight articles and news, where you or your organisation have agreed to take part
• tell you about changes to our services
• send you communications you have asked for, such as our newsletter, event invitations and updates on research and policy
• respond to enquiries and job applications

We keep your personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected, or for as long as set out in any agreement you have with us. Some information must be kept for longer to meet legal or accounting requirements. We review our retention periods regularly. 

Your data is held by Advanced Oxford. We will never sell or rent your information to third parties, and we will not share it with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Occasionally, we may share your information with authorised partners who carry out tasks or provide services on our behalf. For example, we may share attendee names and email addresses with a venue hosting one of our events, for health and safety purposes.

When we work with authorised partners, we only share the information they need to deliver the service. We have agreements in place that require them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing.

We will not release your information to third parties unless we are required to do so by law or a court order, or for the prevention of fraud or other crime.

The types of third parties we work with include:

• IT and website support providers, including our web development partner
• cloud storage and software providers
• event booking and payment providers
• event venues and co-hosting partners
• professional advisers and regulatory bodies

All of these organisations are required by law to protect your data in line with UK data protection legislation.

Some of our service providers may store or process data outside the UK. Where this happens, we make sure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as UK adequacy regulations or approved contractual clauses.

We will only send you marketing emails if you have given us your consent. You can change your preferences at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” in any email we send you, or by emailing us at [email protected]

We want the information we hold about you to be accurate. If you change your email address, or any information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at [email protected]

Under data protection law, you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete
• ask us to delete your information in certain circumstances
• ask us to restrict how we use your information in certain circumstances
• object to us processing your information, including for direct marketing
• ask for your information to be transferred to another organisation in certain circumstances

To make a request, please email [email protected]. We will respond within one month.

Where you have given us consent to use your personal data, you can withdraw it at any time. This will not affect any processing we carried out before you withdrew consent.

We may look at the information you share with us, such as the events you attend and the content you engage with, so that we can send you updates that are relevant to your interests.

Like most websites, the Advanced Oxford website uses cookies. Cookies are small text files placed on your device that help a website recognise you when you return. They collect statistical information about how visitors use the site, which helps us improve it. They do not identify you as an individual.

We use strictly necessary cookies to make the website work, and analytics cookies, such as Google Analytics, to understand how many people visit and which pages are most popular. We only set analytics cookies if you agree to them through our cookie banner.

You can change your cookie settings at any time through the banner, or switch off cookies in your browser settings. Turning off cookies may affect how some parts of the website work. 

Our website contains links to websites run by other organisations, including our members and partners. This policy applies only to our website, so we encourage you to read the privacy policies of any other sites you visit. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites, including any site that linked you to ours.

Our services are aimed at adults and organisations. If you are 16 or under, please ask your parent or guardian for permission before giving us any personal information.

We sometimes take photographs, video or audio recordings at our events for use on our website, social media and other communications. We will let attendees know when this is happening, and you can tell a member of our team if you would prefer not to be photographed or recorded.

Images and recordings are stored securely in OneDrive. They are only shared with authorised partners, such as event co-hosts. If you become aware of any images being used inappropriately, please contact us straight away

If you have a concern about how we handle your personal data, please contact us first at [email protected] and we will do our best to resolve it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

We keep this policy under regular review.

Updated October 2026