Research Technology
LIDA’s LASER Trusted Research Environment (ISO27001/NHS DSPT accredited) is currently being used by 36 research projects with a total value of £50 million. The breadth of projects spans from those that have been central to LIDA’s work for more 10 years, to five new projects that started during 2024.
The Data Analytics Team (DAT) continues to provide legal, information governance, regulatory and ethics expertise and support to those projects, across their whole life cycle. In addition, they have undertaken substantial specialist work in data engineering, data linkage and the development of analysis pipelines, as well as developing an API and web app for the FIND-AF predictive model for heart attack and stroke patients.
Safe Pods
One major advancement in LIDA's provision of expert technology and service this year has been the successful onboarding of LASER to the Safe Pod Network.
Personal and sensitive research data stored and processed by Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA) at the University of Leeds, and previously only accessible through its own physical safe rooms, can now be accessed from 23+ Safe Rooms across the UK through the SafePod Network.
Read more about the Safepod Network
Data Analytics Team
This year we have seen growth in the number of projects and live trusted research environments on LASER, with more new projects and files and fewer researchers exporting their files.
The Data Analytics Team (DAT) expanded its offering this year and delivered a front end and API for an atrial fibrillation risk predictive model, FIND-AF.
The team are currently embedded within 4 research teams:
Curriculum Redefined Research and Evaluation Project - providing meaningful insight into the outcomes, impact and ongoing benefits from the implementation of a comprehensive Curriculum and Portfolio Enhancement project.
Glucocorticoid adverse events and multimorbidity in IMID - bringing together resources from multiple data partners to support a wide range of research projects.
DIO Food HFSS - using store-level sales data from multiple supermarkets which make up to 65% market share in England to understand how sales of High in Fat Salt or Sugar (HFSS) products changed following new legislation to restrict the placement of HFSS products in in-store settings in England.
DynAIRx: AI to support dynamic (de)prescribing - systematically revealing medication-disease trajectories, in real-world contexts, predicting avoidable multimorbidity and augmenting clinical reviews, particularly deprescribing.
The team have also presented at a number of events over year including RSECon23 Sept 2023, Leeds Digital Festival Sept 2023, AIUK Fringe May 2024 and Leeds Digital Summit June 2024.
The LASER and DAT webpages of the LIDA website were also refreshed this year using user feedback and intelligence to provide updated joining information and pricing guidance.