Participant Information Sheet

This Participant Information Sheet refers to our use of data collected through the RCVS UK Leadership Development Study online discussions. 

1. Study Title and Information

UK Veterinary Leadership Development Study 2025

In the 2024 Survey of the Veterinary Professions, both vets and vet nurses gave negative scores in relation to the profession paying sufficient attention to the development of leadership skills (2.5/5.0 and 2.6/5.0 respectively), and around a third of vets (33.3%) and vet nurses (29.8%) felt that better management and leadership would improve the profession.

Previous leadership training offers, such as the Edward Jenner Veterinary Leadership programme, were well received. However, this course is no longer available to the professions.

This study therefore aims to:

Understand the views of those working in the veterinary profession on which skills and competencies are required at different career stages in relation to leadership.

Gather insights into leadership cultures in different practices and assess the extent to which ideologies around leadership are pervasive throughout the profession.

Gather preferences in relation to the mode and format of, as well as content covered by, any future training.

2. An Invitation to Participate in the UK Veterinary Leadership Development Study 2025.

You are being invited to take part in the UK Veterinary Leadership Development Study 2025. Before you decide whether you would like to participate, please read the following information. If anything is unclear, please reach out to the Research Team.

You have been invited to participate in this study because you have been selected at random from the Registers.

Veterinary professionals from ethnic minority backgrounds have been deliberately over-sampled, to ensure that their views and experiences are adequately captured.

Your participation is completely voluntary: you do not have to participate. You can withdraw your data for two weeks after the day of the focus group: after this the data will be included in analysis.

Participation in this study involves taking part in an online focus group, using Zoom, which will take roughly one hour.

All sessions will be recorded. Audio recordings will be held until transcription is completed, which is estimated to be by the 1 November 2025.

If you are willing to participate in the study, your email address will be shared with a member of the RCVS Events Team to allow them to organise the session.

During the focus group you will be asked questions about your experiences of leadership in the profession. You can refuse to answer any questions, and you can leave at any time.

There are no incentives for participation but, should you decide to write a reflection on 1CPD, this would count towards your mandatory CPD hours.

A member of the RCVS Research Team will be facilitating the session, and a member of the Advancement of the Professions team may also be in attendance as an observer.

The facilitator will ask participants not to discuss details outside of the group, to protect everyone’s privacy. However, you should be aware that this is not guaranteed and the risk of individuals discussing details of the group with others remains. You will not be placed in a group with any other individual from your current practice.

Discussions will include topics such as experiences with managers or leaders; therefore, you may be asked to reflect on difficult experiences you have faced previously. Questions around what an ideal veterinary leader looks like may uncover conscious or unconscious bias among other participants, which may cause discomfort or offence. Disagreements among participants may occur. The facilitator will ask all participants to respect each other’s views. Where particular group members are seen to be causing conflict, they will be given a warning and subsequently asked to leave the group.

If you wish to review the questions prior to your interview, please contact the research team and a copy of these will be sent to you.

All data collected as part of this study will be treated confidentially, and in accordance with UK GDPR. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) is the data controller for this research project. As part of the RCVS’s public function, it is important that the RCVS conduct research to gain an insight into the veterinary professions. The RCVS will process the data for the purposes of this survey on a public task lawful basis in the public interest.

Under GDPR you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office at: https://ico.org.uk/

Focus group transcriptions will be anonymised, and any identifying information will be removed. Any published findings with be pseudonymised, using a randomly generated name. Direct quotations may be published as part of reporting; however, these will not contain any identifying information.

If you inform the researcher that you or someone else is at risk of harm during the focus group, the researcher may have to report this to the relevant authorities. If this happens, they will discuss it with you first but may have to escalate this without your permission. If any potential concerns about fitness to practice arise through focus groups, researchers may have to refer this to the relevant team within the College. If you raise concerns about the fitness to practice of past or present colleagues, you will be encouraged to submit a concerns form.

Pseudonymised data and contact details will be held separately until project conclusion, which is estimated to be the 31 March 2026.

If you have any questions about how your data will be used, please e-mail: [email protected]

If you are unclear about any of the information outlined in this document, or wish to ask further questions, please contact one of the research team at [email protected].