Cookie policy

Use of Cookies

Like most other organisations, the Wellcome Trust uses cookies on its websites. This page is designed to provide you with information about what cookies are, how they are used by the Wellcome Trust and how you can control cookies.

What are cookies?

Cookies are text files that are placed on your computer when you visit a website which identify your computer to the server. Cookies do not identify the individual user, just the computer used.

Cookies provide information to the website owner and some are essential to allow parts of the website to operate.

To find out more about cookies you can visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org

How do we use cookies?

The Wellcome Trust uses cookies to gather non-personal statistical information about visitors to our sites, such as the number of visits to pages, the amount of time spent viewing a page, the path taken by visitors to a particular page and other general information. We use this information to improve and help manage our websites and your visitor experience. These cookies may be used to collect analytics of non-personal visitor activity outlines, manage user logins and personal preferences, provide relevant or timely information to you or offer focused advertisements. Cookies enable our server to remember you are the same person as you move through a survey.

When you log into our sites, your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie.

To ensure you are fully informed about the cookies we are using, our sites are currently being independently audited by Cookie Reports Limited and this section will be updated following completion of the audit.

If you would like further information about the Wellcome Trust’s use of cookies please email dataprotection@wellcome.ac.uk

How you can control cookies

You have the opportunity to set your computer to accept all cookies, to notify you when a cookie is issued or to choose not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these options may limit the sites’ operation and prevent you from accessing all functions/services of our sites.

Cookies set across our sites, by our 3rd party partners or us, can be in the form of session or persistent cookies, and may use different technologies, such as JavaScript or Flash. If you would like to disable the cookies set by our site, this can be accomplished on a cookie-by-cookie basis subject to browser settings.

For further information as to how to disable cookies, please visit http://www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=2

Further information

To find out more about cookies please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org

If you would like further information about the Wellcome Trust’s use of cookies please email dataprotection@wellcome.ac.uk

Cookies for Wellcome Trust

Name of cookie	Expiry period	Purpose	Description
ASPSESSIONIDCADTBCQD	Session cookie	Your visit	Stores session data during a website visit, issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET Application, a framework for building websites.
__utma	Persistent - 2 years	Analytics	Collects data such as number of times a visitor has been to the site, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred. This information is used by Google Analytics.
__utmb	Persistent - 30 minutes	Analytics	Takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor enters the site. Used by Google Analytics to calculate how long a website visit takes.
__utmc	Session cookie	Analytics	Takes a timestamp of the exact moment in time when a visitor leaves the site. Used by Google Analytics to calculate how long a website visit takes.
__utmz	Persistent - 6 months	Analytics	Collects data about where the visitor came from, what search engine was used, what link was clicked on, what keywords used, and where in the world the site was accessed from. Used by Google Analytics.
__atuvc	Persistent - 2 years	Social networking	Stores the result of code executed by AddThis to maintain a consistent counter when content is shared.
di	Persistent - 2 years	Social networking	Records user sharing and social activity, on behalf of AddThis which is owned and operated by Clearspring Technologies. AddThis is a content sharing platform which gives end users a way to share content across the social web, and provides analytics to publishers.
dt	Persistent - 1 month	Social networking	Records user sharing and social activity, on behalf of AddThis which is owned and operated by Clearspring Technologies. AddThis is a content sharing platform which gives end users a way to share content across the social web, and provides analytics to publishers.
loc	Persistent - 2 months, 3 weeks	Social networking	Records user sharing and social activity, on behalf of AddThis which is owned and operated by Clearspring Technologies. AddThis is a content sharing platform which gives end users a way to share content across the social web, and provides analytics to publishers.
psc	Persistent - 2 years	Social networking	Records user sharing and social activity, on behalf of AddThis which is owned and operated by Clearspring Technologies. AddThis is a content sharing platform which gives end users a way to share content across the social web, and provides analytics to publishers.
uid	Persistent - 2 years	Social networking	Provides a uniquely assigned machine-generated user ID. AddThis, owned and operated by Clearspring Technologies, uses this information to give end users a way to share content across the social web, and provide publishers with in-depth analytics.
uit	Persistent - 1 day	Social networking	Used by AddThis for login time tracking. AddThis, owned and operated by Clearspring Technologies, is a content sharing platform which gives end users a way to share content across the social web, and provides publishers with in-depth analytics.
uvc	Persistent - 2 years	Social networking	Measures how often AddThis see a user. AddThis, owned and operated by Clearspring Technologies, uses this information to give end users a way to share content across the social web, and provide publishers with in-depth analytics.
xtc	Persistent - 2 years	Social networking	Records user sharing and social activity, on behalf of AddThis which is owned and operated by Clearspring Technologies. AddThis is a content sharing platform which gives end users a way to share content across the social web, and provides analytics to publishers.
sess	Persistent - 1 day	Advertising	Tests whether a browser is configured to accept cookies from Advertising platform AppNexus.
uuid2	Persistent - 90 days	Advertising	Contains a unique randomly-generated value that enables Advertising platform AppNexus to distinguish browsers and devices.
ck	Persistent - 5 years, 3 weeks	Social networking	Used by Affectv Ltd, a Social Targeting company who work with hundreds of websites and social media sites globally to display ads and video ads for users based on their internet browsing. The aim is to make display and video ads more relevant for users to enhance their web browsing experience.
oo	Persistent - 5 years, 3 weeks	Social networking	Used by Affectv Ltd, a Social Targeting company who work with hundreds of websites and social media sites globally to display ads and video ads for users based on their internet browsing. The aim is to make display and video ads more relevant for users to enhance their web browsing experience.
pt	Persistent - 1 month	Social networking	Used by Affectv Ltd, a Social Targeting company who work with hundreds of websites and social media sites globally to display ads and video ads for users based on their internet browsing. The aim is to make display and video ads more relevant for users to enhance their web browsing experience.
NID	Persistent - 6 months	Media	Pages embedding content from Google Maps set this cookie.
PREF	Persistent - 2 years	User preferences	Stores user preferences for Google.
acs	Persistent - 180 days	Advertising	Media6Degrees is a socially targeted advertising company and can be part of the AddThis application which collects behavioural information.
clid	Persistent - 180 days	Advertising	Media6Degrees is a socially targeted advertising company and can be part of the AddThis application which collects behavioural information.
ipinfo	Persistent - 180 days	Advertising	Set when using the interactive learning sessions on the site and viewing video content.
rdrlst	Persistent - 180 days	Advertising	Media6Degrees is a socially targeted advertising company and can be part of the AddThis application which collects behavioural information.
sglst	Persistent - 180 days	Advertising	Media6Degrees is a socially targeted advertising company and can be part of the AddThis application which collects behavioural information.
vstcnt	Persistent - 180 days	Advertising	Media6Degrees is a socially targeted advertising company and can be part of the AddThis application which collects behavioural information.
i	Persistent - 2 years	Advertising	Collects data such as browser information, IP address, search history, clickstream data. Used by OpenX Limited which is an Ad network / Retargeter Technology provider enabling advertisers to target an advertisement to a user who has visited their website or interacted with a different advertisement in the past. Aggregate data is shared with 3rd parties
ASP.NET_SessionId	Session cookie	Your visit	Stores session data during a website visit, issued by Microsoft's ASP.NET Application, a framework for building websites.
_canary	Persistent - 6 months	Advertising	Used to define demographic information about consumers - Created by the AddThis plugin to assist with user analytics and advertising management, behavioral tracking and re-targeting.
_mpush	Persistent - 1 day	Advertising	Used to define demographic information about consumers - Created by the AddThis plugin to assist with user analytics and advertising management, behavioral tracking and re-targeting.
_xgcid	Persistent - 3 years	Advertising	Used to define demographic information about consumers - Created by the AddThis plugin to assist with user analytics and advertising management, behavioral tracking and re-targeting.
_xguid	Persistent - 3 years	Advertising	Used to define demographic information about consumers - Created by the AddThis plugin to assist with user analytics and advertising management, behavioral tracking and re-targeting.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	Persistent - 240 days	Advertising	Remembers if YouTube should show the new-style or old-style video interface to you.

Use of Flash

Across our website we may make use of flash files which present information, allow integration with third parties (such as YouTube) and can offer a richer online experience. We have strived to identify any Flash elements that are likely to set cookies but, at this point in time, we cannot guarantee the status of every Flash file. Adobe offers a tool to monitor, prevent and remove ‘flash cookies’ – more information is available from Adobe.