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A new research platform has launched at Swansea University to help neurological research programmes manage complex data, establish secure research environments and create valuable data resources that can support future research.
The Neurological Data Platform (NDP) brings together secure research infrastructure, specialist data services and established governance within a shared environment for neurological research, allowing scientific programmes to build on proven capability rather than creating their own infrastructure and processes from scratch.
The NDP is being delivered by the Secure eResearch Platform (SeRP) has been developed from more than a decade of experience supporting major research programmes and Trusted Research Environments, including the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK) Data Portal.
The new model is designed to address a common challenge for large scientific programmes. Complex studies increasingly generate clinical, imaging, genomic, biomarker and participant-reported data, but establishing the infrastructure, governance, processes and specialist teams required to manage these data can take considerable time and investment.
Rather than each programme building these capabilities independently, NDP provides a shared foundation that can be used across multiple research hubs.
Each NDP Hub retains its own scientific leadership, identity, research community and appropriate governance arrangements, while NDP provides the infrastructure and operational capability underneath.
NDP Co-Director Emma Squires said: “Some of the most exciting research programmes in neuroscience are generating incredibly rich and complex data, but every new programme faces many of the same challenges around infrastructure, governance, data management and future access.
“NDP means they do not have to start from scratch. We can provide an established, trusted foundation and work with scientific teams to build the data capability around their programme.
“What is particularly important to us is that this is not simply about providing access to data at the end of a study. We can support programmes throughout the research lifecycle, helping them manage and develop their data as the science progresses and, when the time is right, make those resources discoverable and available for wider research.”
Her fellow co-director Professor Simon Thompson added: “The strength of the NDP model is that programmes retain what makes them distinctive while benefiting from infrastructure and expertise that can be shared.
“Building these capabilities once, and developing them across multiple Hubs, gives us a more sustainable model and means that innovations developed for one research programme can benefit others across the platform.
“Our ambition is for NDP to provide the trusted data infrastructure that enables ambitious neurological science, from the creation of new datasets through to secure analysis, collaboration and future reuse.”
NDP already supports a growing community of neurological research programmes covering dementia, traumatic brain injury, motor neuron disease, adolescent mental health and population research.
As part of the launch, the established DPUK Data Portal will become the NDP Dementias Hub, building on DPUK’s work to make cohort, imaging, genomic and clinical data discoverable and securely accessible to the international dementia research community.