Federated Research is driven to transform how researchers securely access and analyse data across multiple locations. Achieved by promoting independent organisations to work together through agreed-upon standards, protocols, principles, while keeping control over their own data, services, or platforms. There are four themes that guide Federated Research:

Adopt Standards

• Use open standards to provide quality, consistent and reliable processes to reduce friction in deployment
• Developers and communities are supported in developing and connecting tools to a broader ecosystem

Build Trust

• Incorporate best-practice principles to guide handling of sensitive data
• Involvement with leading organisations to design and develop suitable research data infrastructure. These include HDR UK, DARE UK, ELIXIR, and EOSC
• Collaborate with the public to promote transparency, garner acceptance and ensure operation within social licence

Enable Federation

• Federation is more than software or any specific platform. It’s many, working together to form an ecosystem
• Beyond technical possibilities, there are elements of trust, autonomy, and governance to inform what is acceptable and useful
• There is no one-size-fits-all model of federation. How these networks are deployed is determined by trust, data maturity, technical infrastructure, and resources

Accelerate Research

• Conducting research on data that remains at the source maintains safety and security for people
• Expansion of what data is available promotes research that is inclusive and representative of diverse populations
• Improved efficiency of research lifecycle

This documentation activities across our headline programmes of work; Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) and Data and Analytics Research Environments UK (DARE UK). These are heavily aligned programmes of work and outputs will be captured and explained here.

To learn more about the programme, contact Jonaa Eva.