Coming soon: the Scottish Safe Haven Charter 2.0
10 April 2024
Eilidh Guthrie, Partnerships Officer and Jenny Johnston, Project Manager (Scottish Safe Haven Charter Refresh) give us an overview of recent work on the Scottish Safe Haven Charter.
Scottish Safe Havens Network
Research Data Scotland (RDS) is working with Scotland's National and four Regional Safe Havens to realise a federated network, through simplifying and streamlining common systems, processes and services.
About the Scottish Safe Havens Network
The Scottish Safe Havens Network connects the organisations behind Scotland's secure data infrastructure. The network was established by the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) and is now supported by Research Data Scotland (RDS), with the aim of improving systems for accessing data for research in line with the Scottish Government's strategy for health and social care.
Members of the Scottish Safe Havens network operate under the Safe Havens Charter, which sets out agreed standards and principles for secure data access for research across Scotland. This facilitates collaborative innovation and improvements in access to health, social care and administrative data to further enable beneficial research.
Future investment in the federation of technology, governance and administration across the Safe Haven Network will significantly improve Scotland's collective data research capabilities. A federated network will allow data from two or more Safe Havens to be used securely and efficiently, enabling important research for the public benefit of Scotland.
Who is involved?
The Scottish Safe Havens Steering Group comprises the following organisations:
- Electronic Data Research and Innovation Service (eDRIS)
- Health Informatics Centre (HIC), University of Dundee, East of Scotland Node
- Data Safe Haven (DaSH), Grampian
- Lothian Regional Safe Haven (DataLoch)
- The West of Scotland Safe Haven (Greater Glasgow and Clyde)
- EPCC, University of Edinburgh
- Research Data Scotland (RDS)
Scottish Safe Havens Steering Group
Representatives of the Scottish Safe Havens Network come together to form the Scottish Safe Havens Steering Group, which is chaired by RDS. The remit of the Steering Group is to lead, develop and innovate projects that deliver federation of data from the Regional Safe Havens, and to align objectives and activities across the Safe Havens.
Our work and impact
The group meets monthly, usually online, on the last Monday of each month. We often have a relevant external speaker at meetings.
Systems Development Fund (2022/23)
Research Data Scotland created the Systems Development Fund to support the development of shared standards of best practice across the Regional Safe Havens. Round 1 of the fund saw over £760,000 awarded to 5 projects, which successfully developed shared standards and best practice in areas such as synthetic health data, the de-identification of free text in health records, as well the safe use of machine learning.
A successful Showcase event was held in March 2024, where the learnings from these projects was shared with key stakeholders across Scotland and the UK. Details of these projects can be found in the following news article: Five projects awarded to Scottish Regional Safe Havens.
Systems Development Fund (2023/24)
A second round of the Systems Development Fund ran in 2023. This round looked to fund Regional Safe Haven projects that delivered according to the following five priorities:
- Support joint working/federalisation across all the Regional Safe Havens, as outlined in the Scottish Government’s Health and Social Care Data Strategy.
- Pilot or support specialisation in a particular Regional Safe Haven, or expand something that is happening in one safe haven across others.
- Support working between national and regional Safe Havens.
- Support developments that align with those deliverables that mention the data safe havens in the research and innovation chapter of the Health and Social Care Data Strategy.
- Filling in the geographical gaps which exist between the four regional safe havens, and their respective health boards.
In response to this call, the Regional Safe Havens proposed a collaborative project to assess compliance with and adopt common governance standards for Trusted Research Environments outlined in the SATRE (Standardised Architecture for Trusted Research Environments) specification. SATRE was funded as a DARE UK Driver Project in 2023 and aims to bring greater consistency to the Regional Safe Havens through a shared evaluation framework and common standards across the network. The project is due to be completed by the end of 2024.
Learn more about the projects supported by the Systems Development Fund in 2023/24
DARE UK Driver Projects
In 2023, DARE UK (Data and Analytics Research Environments UK) announced funding for five Driver Projects aiming to transform sensitive data research in the UK. These projects aimed to help lay the foundations for a UK-wide network that links together existing trusted research environments.
The Scottish Safe Havens were involved in all five of these projects, with RDS leading public engagement on two of the projects. Head to the DARE UK Driver Project page to learn more.
Other work and impact
The Scottish Safe Havens Network is working on a number of activities, including:
- All Regional Safe Havens support the Data Saves Lives and Five Safes framework for public benefit and to enable efficient research.
- A refresh of the Safe Havens Charter to bring it up to date with recent developments commenced in Spring 2024.
- The Systems Development Fund in 2022/23 and 2023/24.
- Inputting into industrial use of data via the 'Industry access to public sector data: Policy on data access, Scottish Government' review.
- A project around how we communicate consistency and security regarding the safe havens in Scotland, and advocate for the key role they play in the data system.
- Calling for greater investment in Trusted Research Environments (TREs) in Scotland to effectively, technically and materially, in modern infrastructure terms, connect the Scottish Data Safe Haven network (TREs/Secure Data Environments) with the NHS England SDE network in an interoperable and powerful system.
- Reviewing information governance and related processes, led by DataLoch, and use cases, led by DaSH.
- Coordinating other activities, such as collectively responding to DARE UK and other funding calls.
The Scottish Safe Havens are accredited to ISO27001 or equivalent standard for information security management systems.
For more information, please contact Eilidh Guthrie, Partnerships Officer.
Recent updates from the Regional Safe Havens
PETs in the NHS
27 March 2024
This guest blog authored by Dr Charlie Mayor of West of Scotland Safe Haven is part of a series spotlighting the work of Scotland’s Safe Havens, also known as Trusted Research Environments.
Data Delight: a double celebration for HIC
26 March 2024
This guest blog authored by Dr Laura Ward of the Health Informatics Centre (HIC) is part of a series spotlighting the work of Scotland’s Safe Havens, also known as Trusted Research Environments.