Process and guidelines
Our initiatives with commercial companies are governed by the BDA Working with Commercial Companies Guidelines which provide a framework for navigating each collaboration in a transparent and consistent manner. The decision-making appendices and risk assessment documents are available to BDA members only.
- Guidelines for working with commercial companies
- Toolkit for working with commercial companies (Members only)
Commitment to transparency
The BDA is committed to ensuring BDA members and stakeholders understand our strategic direction and have access to information on our relationships with other organisations or companies. Deliberations on partnerships and agreement documents often cannot be made public for commercial contract reasons but it is important to make a commitment to transparency.
In relation to our commercial collaborations and alliances we will:
- Acknowledge any sponsorship or project partnerships on the materials which support the relevant project – for example logos on event publicity materials, clear badging of adverts in Dietetics Today and statements describing the role of the partners on project materials.
- Maintain the list of current corporate members and alliances on the BDA website
- Name the organisation benefitting from the input from dietitians – for example through invitations to attend round table meetings or complete surveys.
To illustrate the BDA’s continued commitment to being open and transparent in its processes and communications, the following information is being published (correct as at January 2019):
- Income from commercial sources represents 12.1% of the BDA turnover in the 2018/19 accounts. This includes advertising in member only communications, job adverts, partnerships, projects, sponsorship and exhibiting at branch, specialist group and BDA-led events.
- In this period, we worked with a large range of organisations from the food and medical nutrition sectors, as well as technology, publishing and service providers for the profession. The table below demonstrates the weighting of income from these organisations.
|
Total income from all sources |
Number of companies |
|
£50 000 – 55 000 |
2 |
|
£30 000 – 50 000 |
0 |
|
£20 000 – 30 000 |
4 |
|
£10 000 – 20 000 |
5 |
|
£5 000 – 10 000 |
4 |
|
£1 000 – 5 000 |
11 |
|
<£1 000 |
15 |
Any questions on transparency can be directed to the BDA Honorary Chair via chairman@bda.uk.com