Trusted research environments (TREs) enable secure access to sensitive and confidential data. Between 22-24 September, we discussed all aspects of TREs at a special TRE Community Conference in Leeds (and online).
The event was a collaboration, funded by DARE UK, between the Safe Data Access Professionals Network (SDAP), that the UK Data Service chairs and maintains, and the UK TRE Community, the SATRE interest group, the SDC Reboot interest group, and the Information Governance interest group.
The conference was be an ideal opportunity to hear from people across the UK and beyond who are helping to build the next generation of research infrastructure for sensitive data.
Federation, governance and transparency
The conference programme included a diverse range of sessions on issues relating to TREs. These included the prospects for creating a federated TRE network, which would allow researchers to access multiple, physically separate TREs together.
This is a topic that has been discussed for several years but is now happening for real in the UK and Europe. Several projects are building and testing new technologies and organisational structures with this goal in mind. The conference will be a chance to review what has been achieved so far and to discuss how to deal with the many barriers that still exist.
Other topics covered included how the fragmentation of TRE information governance can be reduced, the public perception of TREs, and the importance of being transparent and open.
TREs and the UK Data Service
In addition to supporting the event through the Safe Data Access Professionals Network, we also had a UK Data Service stand where you can learn more about the importance of TREs to our work.
If you have any questions about TREs or the UK Data Service, our team will be more than happy to assist. You can also get in touch with us via social media on LinkedIn and Bluesky.