Communications guidelines

At UK Biobank our mission is to enable scientific discoveries that improve human health. In working with us, you're helping to advance that mission. 

To protect the integrity of the resource and the work we enable, it's important that UK Biobank is properly acknowledged in publications, reports, and press releases. These guidelines explain how to do that.

Using UK Biobank’s name and logo

You are welcome to use the UK Biobank name and logo in your communications and reports providing you are an approved UK Biobank researcher, undertaking health research that is in the public interest.

The UK Biobank logo is available on request from the communications team. Contact details are at the foot of this article.

Background on UK Biobank

When citing UK Biobank in your writing or communications, please ensure you use the following
information to guide your language:

UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing anonymised
genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million UK participants. UK Biobank’s database,
which includes blood samples, heart and brain scans and genetic data of the volunteer participants, is
globally accessible to approved researchers who are undertaking health-related research that’s in the
public interest. 

UK Biobank recruited 500,000 people aged between 40-69 years in 2006-2010 from across the UK.
With their consent, they provided detailed information about their lifestyle, physical measures and had
blood, urine and saliva samples collected and stored for future analysis.

UK Biobank’s research resource is a major contributor in the advancement of modern medicine and
treatment, enabling better understanding of the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of a wide range
of serious and life-threatening illnesses – including cancer, heart diseases and stroke.

UK Biobank resource was opened for research use in April 2012. Since then 30,000 researchers from
100 countries have been approved to use it and more than 6,000 peer-reviewed papers that used the
resource have now been published.

UK Biobank is generously supported by its founding funders the UK Medical Research Council (MRC)
and Wellcome, as well as the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, the National Institute of
Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The organisation has over 200
dedicated members of staff, based in multiple locations across the UK.

You can find out more about UK Biobank at http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk

Press releases

If you plan to issue a press release that mentions UK Biobank, please contact the Communications Team beforehand and share a copy for review.

We ask that you please include the following boilerplate at the bottom of your press release:

UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing anonymised
genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million UK participants. UK Biobank’s database,
which includes blood samples, heart and brain scans and genetic data of the volunteer participants, is
globally accessible to approved researchers who are undertaking health-related research that’s in the
public interest.

UK Biobank’s resource was opened for research use in April 2012. Since then 30,000 researchers from
100 countries have been approved to use it and more than 6,000 peer-reviewed papers that used the
resource have now been published.

You can find out more about UK Biobank at ukbiobank.ac.uk

Quotes

If you would like to include a quote from UK Biobank to include in your report or communication
materials you can make a request to the UK Biobank communications team. Please be advised we will not always be able to honour this request.

How UK Biobank uses your information

UK Biobank is a public resource, and we’re keen to promote how it’s being used in order to keep participants informed and to highlight research to the wider scientific community.

All approved applications to use UK Biobank are listed publicly on our website, so researchers may be contacted at any point by journalists or members of the public interested in their work.

Additional requests

Any request to use the name of UK Biobank in a way that falls outside of these guidelines should be
made in writing to the UK Biobank communications team.

Contact details

For all communications requests please contact Naomi Clarke, Head of Press: Naomi.Clarke@ukbiobank.ac.uk

Thank you for complying with these guidelines.