With a varied programme of talks and an interactive market place the event provides a fantastic opportunity to contribute to discussions and support the UK’s development of health data research infrastructure.  Click here to view the draft agenda.

Keynote Speakers

 

Cheryl Battersby
Clinical Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Neonatologist at Imperial College London/Chelsea and Westminster Hospital
Cheryl Battersby is a Consultant Neonatologist at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Neonatal Data Analysis Unit Imperial college London, where the National Neonatal Research Database is maintained and managed. She was awarded an NIHR Advanced Fellowship in 2020 and leads the NeoWONDER: Neonatal Whole Population Data linkage to improve lifelong health and wellbeing of preterm babies programme of research, harnessing routine data to improve long-term outcomes for children born preterm. She is chair of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine Data and informatics steering committee, deputy chair of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) Informatics For Quality Committee, deputy chair of the NIHR HTA Prioritisation committee for hospital based care, and member of the Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB) Advisory Boards. In 2021, she was awarded the RCPCH Simon Newell Early Independent researcher award, recognising her achievements and strong commitment to training the next generation of researchers.

 

Claire Bloomfield
Dr. Claire Bloomfield is the Deputy Director of the NHS England’s Centre for Improving Data Collaboration, which she joined in June 2021. As the Senior Responsible Officer for the Data for Research and Development programme, Claire oversees development and delivery of the Transformation Directorate’s coordinated investments in health data for R&D, to support the ambitions of the Life Sciences Vision, Vision for future of UK Clinical Research Delivery and Genome UK. Her team supports investments to enable R&D and innovation using health data with a goal to improve patient care, including clinical trials operations and infrastructure investment in Trusted Research Environments.

 

Rory Cellan-Jones
Former BBC Technology Correspondent
Formerly BBC Technology Correspondent, Rory now combines his personal experience of two serious long-term health conditions with his passion for technology to highlight the issues, people and their stories around the digital transformation of healthcare. Rory is also a vocal advocate for the use of patient data for research and will lead a stimulating keynote talk and Q&A to open the event.

 

John Jeans
Non-Executive Director, Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre
John is a Non-Executive Director and Mentor who chairs the Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre and serves on the Boards of EM Imaging, HistoIndex pty and DGH Pharma. His previous positions include Chairmanships of Imanova Ltd and the UK BioCentre as well as Directorships of Renishaw plc., Alliance Medical, Prometic Life Sciences Inc, Prometic Pharma SMT Ltd, Karoo CGT and Myconostica.
An advisor to public and third sector organizations, he was appointed in 2014 by the Prime Minister as the UK’s Life Science Champion for medical technology. John leads Innovate UK’s Health KTN Stakeholder Board, and has contributed to advisory panels for the MRC, EPSRC, NIHR, NCUB, NPL, HDRUK and the Wellcome Trust. He has served on several Government bodies including a Ministerial Committee on Medical Technologies, was an inaugural member of the Science Advisory Council for Wales and a founder Trustee of the Francis Crick Institute.

 

Andrew Morris
Director and CEO, HDR UK
Professor Andrew Morris became the inaugural Director of Health Data Research UK in August 2017. He is seconded from his position as Professor of Medicine, and Vice Principal of Data Science at the University of Edinburgh, having taken up position in August 2014. Prior to this Andrew was Dean of Medicine at the University of Dundee.
Andrew was Chief Scientist at the Scottish Government Health Directorate (2012-2017) and has served and chaired numerous national and international grant committees and Governmental bodies.

 

Carole Morris
Head of Data and Modelling Services, Public Health Scotland
Carole’s portfolio includes oversight and management of the Scottish National Safe Haven (Trusted Research Environment) and supporting service known as the eData Research and Innovation Services (eDRIS) team. This team supports health and non-health research, undertaking assistance with seeking data access permissions, data linkage and data provisioning.   With over 20 years’ experience in NHS Scotland, she started as an Analyst working in NHS Lothian and nationally as an Information Consultant. She has an Honours Degree in Maths, Statistics and Management Science from Strathclyde University, Glasgow and Postgraduate Diploma in Health Economics.

 

Paola Quattroni
Head of Alliance Strategy and Engagement, HDR UK
Paola joined HDR UK in February 2020 as Alliance Delivery Manager to lead the day-to-day management of all activities of the Health Data Research Alliance. Her role is integral to manage and deliver the Alliance work programme and support its growth and development, working in partnership with Alliance members and stakeholders from the user community as well as regulators and funders.

 

Phil Quinlan
Head of Digital Research Service, University of Nottingham
Dr Philip Quinlan has developed a career in data systems for biomedical research and currently is the Director of Health Informatics at the University of Nottingham. He has been pioneering federated tools at scale in Covid across some of the leading data resources in the UK. The digital research service, which he leads, is an exciting core service supporting researchers from across the University and goes far beyond biomedical research and includes building data pipelines to support the dairy herd on the University farm to helping to establish the UKs best HGV drivers from data collected in telematrix boxes. All the work has a data challenge and stems from the Advanced Data Analysis Centre (ADAC).

 

Gerry Reilly
Technologist in Residence, HDR UK
Gerry Reilly joined HDR UK in June 2018 to lead the development of the Institute’s technology and infrastructure strategy. Gerry graduated from Queen Mary College (now Queen Mary University of London) in Physics and Electronics and then joined Sony Broadcast and Communications undertaking research in digital video. He is an HDR UK Futures tutor.

 

Andy Roddam
CEO, Our Future Health
Andrew is an internationally renowned epidemiologist with over 20 years of experience and qualifications obtained in BSc (Mathematics & Statistics) at Warwick University and DPhil (Statistics) at University of Oxford. Andrew started his career as a Statistical Epidemiologist at University of Oxford and has had a wide range of roles across both academia and industry principally focused on the application of epidemiological methods to advance the understanding of human disease. Andrew was most recently Vice President Data Strategy at GSK before assuming his role as CEO at Our Future Health leading the UK’s largest ever health research programme in April 2020.

 

David Seymour
Chief of Staff (interim) and Alliance Executive Director, HDR UK
David Seymour joined Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) in June 2019 to lead the development of the UK Health Data Research Alliance (the ‘Alliance’) and other strategic partnerships. He is currently the interim Chief of Staff and Alliance Executive Director, working with data custodians across the UK to maximise the potential of multiple forms of health data for research and innovation purposes to drive improvements in human health and economic growth. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has led HDR UK’s work to accelerate access to linked data for priority research to inform public policy.

 

Kay Snowley
Digital Innovation Hub Programme Manager, HDR UK
Kay Snowley has over 15 years’ experience working in the Higher Education Sector, primarily in leading, managing and delivering large multi stakeholder projects and innovations across the East Midlands. A specialist in developing and implementing commercial and research services, including Continuous Professional Development (CPD), specialised business units, Executive Education and Knowledge Exchange opportunities.

 

Janet Valentine
Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF), Innovate UK, UK Research & Innovation
Janet’s career spans laboratory science to health strategy and research funding. In 2021 Janet joined Innovate UK as Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund Director for the Data to Early Diagnosis and Precision Medicine and the Accelerating Detection of Disease Challenges. Previously Janet was based at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) as Director of the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). CPRD is the UK Government’s dedicated health data research service supporting observational and interventional public health research by industry, academia and medicines regulators worldwide. Prior to her role at MHRA, Janet was Head of Population Health and Health Informatics at the Medical Research Council, where she also led the cross-Research Councils’ Ageing Grand Challenge programme. Janet has been responsible for establishing numerous multi-funder UK research initiatives in informatics, ageing and public health. Janet’s scientific background is in gene regulation.

 

Neil Walker
Chief Data Officer for Gut Reaction and Clinical Bioinformatics and Statistical Genomics Manager at the NIHR BioResource
Neil Walker is the Chief Data Officer for Gut Reaction and Clinical Bioinformatics and Statistical Genomics Manager at the NIHR BioResource. He has spent more than 30 years organising data for medical research, previously working for the MRC, Wellcome Trust, and the NHS. Projects have ranged from a complex 40-person clinical trial to checking facts and figures for a national breast screening program. Along the way, he has developed a deep interest in making de-identified data available for reuse by the right researchers, with the right questions, in the right setting. He has spent many years on Data Access Committees, where the recent focus has been bringing the patient voice to the fore.

 

Mark Walport
Honorary Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Imperial College
Mark Walport is Honorary Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Imperial College. He chairs Imperial College Health Partners and the Imperial College Academic Health Sciences Centre. He was previously the Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation. His previous roles included Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Director of the Wellcome Trust, and Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Medicine at Imperial College.