Data services federation project shares findings

Since April 2024, several organisations have worked together on the Connect 4 project, a partnership investigating federation of data services across four UK national Trusted Research Environments (TREs). 

As part of this work, Research Data Scotland (RDS) worked with project partners at the University of Edinburgh’s EPCC (project lead), the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Public Health Scotland (PHS) and National Records of Scotland (NRS) to identify areas for improvement across several key areas.   

Jen Muir, Scottish Safe Haven Network Manager at Research Data Scotland, summarises the key outcomes from the project.

A Shared Service Model

We worked closely with colleagues at ONS to produce a roadmap to a federated data service for the UK. 

We knew that engaging with the researchers who use these services would be a crucial part in developing this roadmap to federation, so we created a survey to ask researchers about their experiences of using the current system. We also shared our recommendations for system improvements with them, asking for their opinions on this early stage of work. 

Around 30 researchers responded to our survey, and their insights helped us to shape our work on the roadmap into a Shared Service Model. This Shared Service Model proposes a phased approach for national TREs towards a shared, interoperable research data service in the UK. 

Alongside this, an Information Governance Model was developed, which sets out the foundational principles, technical requirements, and governance considerations needed to establish a federated data service across UK TREs. 

Standardised application 

The Connect 4 project was extended to include work to align the digital application pathway and panel of the RDS Researcher Access Service with the statutory accreditation criteria of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (DEA). 

A pilot of a new standardised application form has begun that aligns these criteria for data access through the Researcher Access Service to other services across the UK, including the Office for National Statistics, the UK Data Service, SAIL Databank and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. 

This new application form is an important building block towards achieving one application, one review and accreditation for cross-nation research carried out through a shared service.

We also reviewed our RDS Metadata Catalogue, recommending improvements to boost interoperability. Plus, we considered our capability for federation through the Researcher Access Service, defining next steps beyond Connect 4 that involves continued partnership working.

Finding solutions together

This project also allowed us the opportunity to organise and facilitate cross-nation indexing workshops with experts from each UK nation. These workshops focused on collaborative solutions to indexing and linking data from different environments.

Other partners across the project were involved in delivering key pieces of work on metadata improvements and enhancements such as methods for semi-automated metadata augmentation, user research and user feedback on enhanced metadata, and a paper on lessons learned from a use case. 

Next steps

The team have identified ways of working together across organisations that will enable us to work towards a shared goal of an interoperable research data service in the UK. 

One of the first steps will be to engage with services and data owners to identify datasets held in different environments that can become pilot datasets in an early federated data service. These will help us develop and test different parts of a shared service.

More information 

We’d like to extend a special thanks to the researchers who shared their views with us through this survey. Interested in taking part in future surveys? Join the RDS engagement contact list to let us know what topics you would like to be involved with. You can find out more about Connect 4 on the RDS project page and in this article on the EPCC website: Working towards frictionless, UK-wide data-driven research and innovation.