Terms of delivery

Our general terms of delivery cover all deliveries of data. In addition, a number of agreements must be concluded in order for you to receive data from Research Services.

Research Services is a revenue-funded company, meaning that we charge for the time spent providing our services.
 
This means that we must recover the costs of the services we provide. For public institutions, some of these services are covered by the Coordinating Body for Registry Research, but the rest must be paid by the individual research institution applying to access data for research projects.

Research Services charges for both time spent processing an application and time spent afterwards on advising, updating data, and similar services. That is, you will also be billed for advice and guidance provided to you once you have obtained data access. This also applies if you contact us after the data delivery for your project has been completed.

The project will be billed at the end of each month. If the invoice comprises several projects, the invoice will detail the number of hours spent on each project. The invoice will include payment for the time Research Services has spent on your project during the month. Depending on the project, this will include the following:

  • Processing of application
  • Programming of access to data on The Secure Research Platform
  • Extraction/programming of data for delivery to another data processing site
  • Advising and support for inquiries to Research Services after the data delivery
  • Updating of data and changes to data access
  • Fees for projects on The Secure Research Platform

The price of a project on The Secure Research Platform covers, among other things, time spent processing your application, advising, and programming your project. In addition, there are ongoing costs charged for active users, disk usage, and Stata license, if applicable.

Research Services charges for all time spent on your project. That is, we also invoice any advice that takes place once your project has been set up. If you wish to make changes to an ongoing project, you will be invoiced for time spent implementing the changes.

Before your project is programmed, we will enter an 'Agreement on data access'. This agreement will contain an estimate of how many hours we plan to use on the processing of your application and the programming of your data access. Please note that this is an estimate. We will continually record hours during the application process. If the task turns out to be significantly larger than the estimate given, we will contact you again. 

Unless otherwise agreed, billing will be made to the authorised research environment. Billing occurs on a monthly basis at the current hourly rate. The invoice will state the number of hours spent on each project. It is possible to link different payers to projects under the same authorisation. However, billing of user fees and disk usage on The Secure Research Platform will be continuously invoiced to the authorised research environment.

The price of having data delivered to another data processing site covers time spent processing your application, advising, and programming your extraction. Research Services charges for all time spent on your project, meaning that we also invoice for any advice given after the data has been delivered.

Before your extraction is programmed, you will receive a data access agreement. This will contain an estimate of how many hours we plan to use on the processing of your application and the programming of your data access. Please note that this is an estimate. We will continually record hours during the application process. If the task turns out to be significantly larger than the estimate given, we will contact you again.

Billing occurs monthly at the current hourly rate. The invoice will state the number of hours spent on your project during the month.

At the moment we are unfortunately unable to deliver data within 30 working days.

For individual-level data requests, we aim to deliver data within 30 working days. Unfortunately, we are unable to meet this target at the moment, as we currently have a large number of applications.

We are unable to prioritise or fast-track applications, as we are obliged to treat applicants equally. Some applicants may find that their application is being processed sooner than indicated in our general announcements. This is because we select applications that can be included in the training of new staff. Others applicants can unfortunately experience longer waiting periods than initially announced due to a shortage of the competencies necessary to process the application.

Please follow our instructions carefully before applying. The processing time from application to the delivery of data will depend greatly on whether or not your application contains the necessary documentation. If your project lacks documentation of the approval by your data controller institution, for instance, or if the extract description, order form, or project description is incomplete, the delivery time will usually take longer. This can also be the case if the application otherwise requires further clarification between you and Research Services.

Working days include days that are available for us to process your application at Research Services. That is, weekends, public holidays, as well as the month of July and the days between Christmas and New Year, are not counted as working days. The same applies to time spent waiting for documentation or for answers from you to clarify questions.

If you receive a full or partial rejection of your application to access data and you do not believe the rejection is justified, you can contact Research Services by e-mail and request that the case is reopened. In order for us to reassess your application, your request must contain a description of why you think we have assessed your application incorrectly. As soon as possible upon receipt of your request, we will assess whether we can reopen your application.

If you have found possible errors or faults in the data, in relation to the agreement on data access that was entered, you must contact Research Services as soon as possible and no later than three months after delivery. Please describe the errors or faults in the data set in an e-mail and we will review the programming and assess whether there are errors in it.

If we assess that there are errors or faults in your data, we will immediately rectify the mistake free of charge. If your request is made three months after delivery, we reserve the right to charge you for costs related to correcting your data.

Contact

Research Services

Monday to Friday: 9.30-12.00

E: forskerservice@sundhedsdata.dk
T: +45 3218 3900