PROMOTE
Progressing Routes and Opportunities through Mentoring, Openness, Training, and Equity (PROMOTE)
Mentoring Scheme - Apply now!
Our PROMOTE Mentoring Scheme is now open for applications for those working in biomedical data science.
Positions are available for both mentors and mentees to take part.
Find out more about the scheme and apply to take part!
Find out more about mentoring
About the project
PROMOTE is a two-year Medical Research Council funded project focussed on biomedical data scientists’ careers. It is based in LIDA at the University of Leeds, and works in collaboration with Universities of York, Sheffield, Teesside and Newcastle.
We are working with a wide range of industry partners including, West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, Northern Health Science Alliance, Association of British HealthTech Industries, Digital Health Ethos, Pinpoint Data Science, Bradford Institute of Health Research, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Medipex.
Biomedical Data Scientists
We follow the Medical Research Council’s definition of a Biomedical Data Scientist from their 2022 report: ‘The Opportunity of Biomedical Data Science’. See definitions below:
‘Data science: the use of scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract knowledge and insights from structured and unstructured data, including data analysis, data integration and interfaces with other data domains (e.g. health and population data), systems/computational modelling, new analytical methods, adaptation of AI methods and AI-enabled analytics, data wrangling, research software engineers, data engineers, data itself and digital infrastructure.
Biomedical data: to include data ranging from omics and microscopy to medical imaging and population cohort data.’
Context
There is a growing need for highly skilled biomedical data scientists in academia and industry to tackle important societal challenges. Whilst there are a multitude of early career training opportunities in data science, there remain barriers to progression into leadership roles which make careers in the area less attractive and less accessible.
In academia, one of the key challenges for data scientists is that they often take supporting roles in developing and implementing methodology alongside a wide range of academics in different scientific and clinical fields. Current academic promotion pathways focus on an individual’s contribution as a leader on research papers and grant applications, and place value on a clear academic vision and direction. Such benchmarks create a challenge for those in supporting roles and recognition of the valued contribution made by skilled biomedical data scientists to research is often limited.
Beyond academia, data scientists are a key workforce in industry and the public sector, including the NHS. In these sectors, with the strong recent influence of AI methodology, these new careers are much more varied and less well understood. As a result of this, interactions, knowledge exchange and career permeability between academic and other sectors are presently limited. Equally, there remains a need to increase the level of commercial exploitation of academic research in biomedical data science and to increase entrepreneurship among biomedical data scientists at all career stages.
Project aims
The project aims to map career pathways for biomedical data scientists in a range of sectors, to understand barriers to progression to leadership roles and to initiate activities that promote change.
Planned Activities and Timeline
| Activity | Timing |
| HR analysis – understanding promotion policies, training and development | Summer 2025 |
| Academic career mapping | Winter 2025 |
| Industry career mapping | Early 2026 |
| Mentoring initiation | Spring 2026 |
| Intersectoral exchanges | Summer 2026 |
| Entrepreneurship and commercialisation activities | Summer 2026 |
| Career advice materials | Early 2027 |
Get in touch
Have a question? Contact Principal Investigator Dave Westhead or Researcher Jess Shilton