Accessibility statement

NIHR is committed to making its websites and mobile applications accessible, in accordance with national legislation transposing Directive (EU) 2016/2102 of the European Parliament and of the Council and in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. 

This accessibility statement applies to the NIHR Research Support Service and Specialist Centre for Public Health delivered by University of Southampton and Partners.

Compliance status

We have built this website using the Google Sites platform. The 2023 Google Sites accessibility conformance report confirms the platform either fully supports or partially supports the majority of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level A and AA requirements.

However, we recognise the restrictions of the Google Sites platform means some parts of the website are not fully accessible. We’ve listed some of the key issues below:

• Some elements on pages can’t be appropriately labelled. So, the meaning of some elements and their relationship to other aspects of the page can’t be conveyed to people who use assistive technologies

• The colour contrast ratio between the text area and the background in some places is less than 4.5:1. This means that users who are colour blind or have low vision may have difficulty reading the text

Website content accessibility conformance

Other than the restrictions imposed by the Google Sites platform, we have made every effort to ensure this site is accessible to everyone, including people using assistive technologies:

• You can skip to the main content using a screen reader and Google Sites supports a range of keyboard shortcuts

• You can Zoom in to all page content up to 400% without content being lost

• Google Sites can be used with several screen readers

• We have made the written content as easy as possible to understand

• We have followed NIHR brand accessibility guidelines

Non-accessible content

We recognise some parts of the site are not fully accessible:

• Some of the content we link to is in an inaccessible format or out of our jurisdiction, like pdf or an external website

• When zoomed in or viewed on smaller screens/devices, some of the page banner titles may bleed into the background image and therefore become less legible

Assistive technologies

Google recommends using the following screen readers to optimize user experience:

• Microsoft Windows: Chrome Browser, using JAWS or NVDA screen reader

• macOS: Chrome Browser, using VoiceOver screen reader

• Chrome OS: Chrome Browser, using ChromeVox screen reader

The following document provides a list of useful shortcuts for each screen reader to navigate Google Sites: Use Google Sites with a screen reader - Sites Help.

Contact information and feedback mechanism

If you wish to report any accessibility challenges in using this website, or if you require any information on this website in a different format, such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact: nihr-rss-comms@soton.ac.uk 

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 30 days. 

Statement preparation

This statement was prepared on 29 January 2025. It was last reviewed on 29 January 2025.

This website was last tested on 29 January 2025. The test was conducted by the NIHR RSS SCPH delivered by University of Southampton and Partners.

We used a third-party accessibility tool called WAVE to test the accessibility of this website. WAVE can identify many accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors, but also facilitates human evaluation of web content. A full explanation of how this tool works can be found on WAVE’s website.