DARE UK has published recommendations for a coordinated national infrastructure for sensitive data research
Category: ADR UK Partnership
2 September 2022
The DARE UK (Data and Analytics Research Environments UK) programme, led in partnership with ADR UK, has published a summary of findings and recommendations from Phase 1 of the programme to date.
The DARE UK programme was established to design and deliver a coordinated and trustworthy national data research infrastructure to support research at scale for public good. The programme has published the findings and recommendations to date from Phase 1, ‘Design and Dialogue’, which began in July 2021. The programme is led jointly between ADR UK and Health Data Research UK (HDR UK).
The aim of this phase was to understand the key challenges across the data research landscape and how they can be overcome to better support data research at scale for the public good. This resulted in a set of recommendations based on input from a wide variety of stakeholders from across the sensitive data research landscape. It came from a programme of engagement including over 60 hours of interviews and over 30 hours of workshops with more than 500 individuals including researchers, technologists, private sector representatives, members of the public and others.
The report makes 31 recommendations for the design and delivery of a coordinated and trustworthy national data research infrastructure across seven core areas of need:
- demonstrating trustworthiness
- researcher accreditation and access
- accreditation of research environments
- data and discovery
- core federation services
- capability and capacity
- funding and incentives.
The programme has now secured further funding with a total of £4.5 million from September 2022 to October 2023 as part of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) programme. This further funding into DARE UK Phase 1 will enable the Delivery Team to begin to take forward some of the more immediate recommendations outlined in this report, as well as to dedicate time to further scope and refine longer-term recommendations. The next phase, ‘Build, Test and Establish’, will begin in October 2023.
ADR UK Director Dr Emma Gordon said: “The important work undertaken by DARE UK will contribute to decisions around future data research infrastructures that better support research in the public interest. It’s vital that these decisions are informed by the views of people across the sector and the wider public, so I’m pleased to see this report published today. I look forward to considering the recommendations going forward.”
