EPSRC Large Scale Facilities - User survey

Welcome to the user survey on the accessibility and inclusion of the EPSRC Large Scale Facilities.

What are the aims of the survey?

We have designed this survey so we can gather information, from the point of view of facility users, on the accessibility and inclusivity of EPSRC-supported facilities. If you have used, or have wanted to use, one of our Large-Scale Facilities, which include the National Research Facilities and High-Performance Computing services such as Tier2s and ARCHER2, then we would like you to respond to this survey.

The results of this survey will be used to help us understand any difficulties with achieving greater accessibility, as well as what is working well across our range of facilities.

This survey has been designed by the EPSRC Research Infrastructure and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) teams, in conjunction with our Disability and Accessibility Advisory Group and the UKRI Equality Diversity and Inclusion Caucus (EDICa).

We are looking at four main areas of interest (which may vary in how relevant they are to you):

1. Application information – the accessibility of information needed to apply to use the facilities
2. In-person access – the physical design of the facilities and fixed infrastructure within it, including adaptation of protocols e.g. evacuation protocols (where relevant)
3. Remote access – the design of remote access routes (where relevant)
4. Event planning – the accessibility of consultation, training and dissemination events, virtual, hybrid and in-person.

Do I have to take part?

Taking part is entirely optional. However, the benefit of taking part is that you, through your experiences of the facilities, will help us and the facilities better understand accessibility needs of the users. This will in turn help us to understand what could be done to improve accessibility and inclusion of our facilities. This is your chance to have your voice heard.

No respondents to the survey will be asked their name or institution. All responses will remain confidential.

What will completing the survey involve?

This survey consists of up to 37 questions that take the form of multiple choice, rating scales and optional free text boxes. We estimate the survey to take a minimum of 20 minutes to complete. For those with extended experience of the facilities and those who wish to provide extra written comments we anticipate it may take longer to complete.

We appreciate that the range of facilities that we support are varied and not all the questions will be applicable to you. You will be able to miss out sections not relevant to you or select ‘not applicable’ for individual questions. We would prefer you to attempt all relevant questions, but if need be, you can choose not to answer questions you feel are irrelevant or not applicable to you.

This survey uses the UKRI Citizen Space site, which meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standards. The Citizen Space platform has a 'save and return' feature that allows you to come back to your incomplete survey response at a later date without losing the information you've already entered. You must have cookies enabled in their web browser to use this feature, and the feature is not available for responses that have already been completed and submitted.

What do I do if don’t want to take part, or change my mind after taking part?

If you read the survey information and decide not to take part, simply close the browser or select “No” to the question below regarding informed consent.

Unfortunately, as all responses are anonymised by Citizen Space before being provided to us, we are not able to guarantee withdrawal from the survey after completion as we will not be able to identify your response. Additionally, once you have hit submit at the end of the survey you will not be able to withdraw your responses as we will not be able to link your identity with your response.

How will the survey findings be used?

This survey is not about singling out individual facilities but sharing what is working well. Once we have analysed the responses, the aggregated results will be shared with the facilities, so we can jointly explore ways in which our range of facilities can become more inclusive, e.g. through good practice sharing.

What do I do if I have any questions and queries about the survey (now or after)?

If you have any questions or queries regarding the survey before, during or after completing the survey, please contact inclusionmatters@epsrc.ukri.org or researchinfrastructure@epsrc.ukri.org.