Three projects secure funding to explore synthetic data use

Police Scotland, the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit (SPHSU) at the University of Glasgow, and the Grampian Data Safe Haven (DaSH) at the University of Aberdeen and NHS Grampian were successful in securing funding from the inaugural RDS synthetic data fund.

Approximately £100,000 was available for non-commercial organisations to help support work that fits within the remit of the RDS synthetic data strategy and particularly within the following areas:

Disclosure risk and information governance (IG)
Synthesis of data
Access, promotion and engagement

Dr Lynne Adair, Data Curation Manager and RDS lead on synthetic data, said: “I’m delighted that RDS will be funding these three projects to support our pioneering approach to using synthetic data in Scotland.

“Researchers and data analysts are recognising the untapped potential of synthetic data as a tool to allow them to test approaches while waiting for the necessary permissions to use actual data, and to help understand what the data looks like. We are also interested in new and innovative uses of synthetic data. But there is currently no standard governance framework for synthetic data access and infrastructure.

“I hope by funding these projects, which look into these issues, we’ll gain a deeper insight about how synthetic data can be used to ultimately benefit the public.”

Find out more about the successful projects:

“This unique opportunity will allow us to continue to explore how we can improve our services for the benefit of the population, using the latest advances in data science, as well as offer Scotland’s academic community access to more data at greater speed than present.”

Harry Schone, Data Science Coordinator in the Chief Data Office for Police Scotland

Police Scotland

Led by Police Scotland’s Chief Data Office and in conjunction with the School of Maths at University of Edinburgh, this project has been awarded just over £16,000 to create a synthetic data set of incidents reported by the public and collected by their command and control system.

This four-month project will produce a valuable data set documenting incidents based on real-life data across time, space, and categories comprising a significant amount of police response and call for service activity in Scotland. It will be helpful in managing future demand, as well as sharing valuable geospatial and temporal activity data with researchers.

Harry Schone, Data Science Coordinator in the Chief Data Office for Police Scotland said:

“We’re extremely grateful to receive this funding from RDS – this unique opportunity will allow us to continue to explore how we can improve our services for the benefit of the population, using the latest advances in data science, as well as offer Scotland’s academic community access to more data at greater speed than present.”

SPHSU, University of Glasgow

This project, titled ‘Linking survey-based full-scale synthetic populations with administrative records: exploring added value for Scotland’s safe havens’ has been awarded £10,535. Led by Dr Andreas Hoehn, this project aims to explore the scalable creation and linkage of synthetic data sources.

The project will utilise the existing SIPHER Synthetic Population for individuals in Great Britain, a unique data set developed by researchers of the Systems Sciences in Health and Health Economics Research (SIPHER) Consortium. The data set provides a ‘digital twin’ enriched with a substantial amount of associated information for everyone in Scotland, England and Wales – over 50 million people. Based on the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society), the resulting data set reflects many key attributes of Great Britain’s population, including health, education, employment, and housing.

Dr Hoehn, Research Associate said: “This funding from Research Data Scotland allows us to explore the untapped potential of an existing high-quality synthetic data set.

“By combining administrative data with our synthetic population data set, we open up unique opportunities. The resulting linkage will enable researchers and policymakers to gain insights into individuals' experiences, behaviours, intentions, or opinions, all while considering their interactions with institutional services. It promises a deeper understanding and support for more informed decision-making.”

“By combining administrative data with our synthetic population data set, we open up unique opportunities. [...] It promises a deeper understanding and support for more informed decision-making.”

Dr Andreas Hoehn

The Synthetic Population data set, soon accessible via the UK Data Service, has already influenced policy and practice. Collaborations include NHS Greater Manchester and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, uncovering spatial patterns of problematic alcohol consumption and associated individual-level factors. Ongoing work within SIPHER involves incorporating the data set into a microsimulation model, assessing the impact of existing policies on child poverty in Scotland.

Partnering with Dr Charlie Mayor from the West of Scotland Safe Haven, this new project is seeking to also explore the information governance requirements for providing the synthetic population data set in Scotland's safe havens and linking it to administrative data as a “Ready and Reuse Model”.

Grampian Safe Haven (DaSH) - University of Aberdeen and NHS Grampian

Led by Katherine O’Sullivan, and also working with eDRIS, DataLoch, Health Informatics Centre at University of Dundee, and West of Scotland Safe Haven, this project has been awarded nearly £60,000 to explore a standard approach to risk assessment of synthetic data.

In particular, the project will deliver a defined governance pathway(s) for researchers to access synthetic data within secure environments. It will establish a common standard for the infrastructure and security standards of the secure environment required for synthetic data.

Katherine O’Sullivan, Operational Lead for the Grampian Data Safe Haven (DaSH), said: “We are thrilled that we were one of the projects selected and hugely grateful for RDS’s interest and seeing value in this work. This will be the first federated approach to the information governance, access and infrastructure around synthetic data.”

“This will be the first federated approach to the information governance, access and infrastructure around synthetic data.”

Katherine O'Sullivan, Operational Lead for the Grampian Data Safe Haven (DaSH)

All three projects will hold a minimum of two seminars to communicate their work. To keep up to date about their progress, or hear about future funding opportunities at RDS, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on X (Twitter) and LinkedIn.

RDS is a not-for-profit charitable organisation created and funded by Scottish Government. We are a partnership between Scottish Government, leading universities and public bodies, such as Public Health Scotland (PHS) and National Records Scotland (NRS), working together to make it quicker and simpler to use public sector data for public good.