UKRI Inform Design of Cross-Council Trusted Research Environments

Funding from UKRI for driver projects to lay the foundations for a trustworthy national data research infrastructure as part of the Data and Analytics Research Environments (DARE UK) programme.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is offering funding to contribute as a driver project to lay the foundations for a trustworthy national data research infrastructure as part of the Data and Analytics Research Environments (DARE UK) programme.

The aim of these short duration driver projects will be to establish key design foundations for specific components of a coordinated and trustworthy national data research infrastructure to support cross-domain research at scale for public good.

More specifically, these driver projects will take a leading role in informing the design of specific components of what will be a UK-wide, interoperable network of trusted research environments (also known as secure data research environments) for sensitive data research at scale for public good. These driver projects will be integrated with working groups that will be established under the DARE UK programme and UKRI’s partners to address some of the fundamental challenges identified during Phase 1a of the DARE UK programme.

These working groups will act as expert bodies responsible for collaboratively defining the strategy, delivery planning, and execution in each working group’s area of expertise. These working groups will be convened and supported through the DARE UK programme or partners, however the members themselves will take the lead to shape the directions of each of the working groups.

While these projects are time limited to Phase 1b of the DARE UK programme, the DARE UK working group structure is envisaged to persist in the longer term across the future programme phases with potential opportunities for future delivery in each working group remit.

A project team can be led by or include members of a working group. Successful applicants will be expected to actively participate in the relevant working groups.

Each driver project will be focused on one of the following areas:

• Trusted research environment (TRE) reference architecture.
• Core federation services.
• Federated identity management across TREs.
• Partial automated risk assessment at data access request.
• Partial automation of output control.

DARE UK is committed to meaningful public involvement and engagement, and all applications must include plans for embedding public involvement and engagement in the lifecycle of the project.

Projects can last from January 2023 to October 2023.