Celebrating excellence in health data research and team science
We are delighted to announce the shortlisted candidates for this year’s Susannah Boddie Award for Impact of the Year and Team of the Year Award.
At HDR UK, we are proud to support and celebrate excellence in health data research. We are passionate about highlighting the significant achievements of those in our community, who are transforming data science and driving impactful change in healthcare.
We are excited to announce this year’s shortlisted candidates for our Susannah Boddie Award for Impact of the Year and Team of the Year Award. Selected by a panel of experts, these prizes recognise exceptional research contributions and the power of team science within the HDR UK community.
Susannah Boddie Award for Impact of the Year
The Susannah Boddie Award for Impact of the Year — formerly our ‘Impact of the Year’ award — was renamed last year in honour of Susannah, a 27-year old senior data scientist in 10 Downing Street’s Data Science team (10DS) who passed away in August 2023.
This award recognises work that demonstrates a significant advance towards our mission; to accelerate trustworthy use of health data to enable discoveries that improve people’s lives. The panel selected four exemplar contributions that have delivered impact to clinical practice or policy over the past year, through algorithms, software, research publications, and more.
Shortlisted candidates:
- Equitable approaches to health data research across ten countries: understanding the impact of COVID-19 on health services and institutional mortality – This global research collaboration, supported by the International COVID-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) programme, drove decision-making on pandemic policy across ten countries to help monitor disruptions in healthcare services and identify priorities for improving resilience against future emergencies.
- Innovative community engagement approaches in research to identify shared priorities and inform COVID-19 vaccination programmes in Brazil – This Brazil-based study led to significant increases in COVID-19 vaccination uptake for some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Rio de Janeiro through grassroots efforts and collaboration with local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), while also devising strategies to reach the wider community with health and COVID-19 messaging at a time when public communication was limited.
- Linking data from health and education to transform research to improve the lives of children and the adults they become – The Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD) Research Database — a unique data resource — influenced early years’ policies, advanced research on childhood health and education, and improved decision-making across government departments.
- Using health data to influence COVID-19 policy decisions – A study to assess the impact of COVID-19 vaccination uptake on stroke, heart attack and blood clots – Research led by the CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT Consortium has had a direct impact on thousands of lives by addressing public concerns about vaccine safety for specific demographic groups, highlighting the risks of under-vaccination against COVID-19 and providing insights to support increased vaccination along with evidence of the associated risks.
Team of the Year Award
The Team of the Year Award celebrates collaboration by groups of researchers, innovators, technologists, triallists and more. Team working is core to HDR UK’s mission and the panel have selected four case studies that embody our values of Transparency, Optimism, Courage, Respect and Humility (TORCH).
Shortlisted candidates
- Advancing interoperable sensitive data research infrastructure through community group funding – The DARE UK Community Groups initiative has helped drive improvements in Secure Data Environment (SDE) infrastructure development, through enabling better collaboration within the sensitive data research community and by funding community groups to support rapid expansion in partnership working and sharing of expertise.
- Driving forward sensitive data research in the UK: The DARE UK Driver Projects – Five projects have developed practical solutions for key issues facing SDEs, which include providing a blueprint for overcoming barriers to secure and rapid data sharing across multiple SDEs, and delivering (semi)-automated systems to better guarantee the security and privacy of the sensitive data.
- Enhancing diversity and quality in health data – A White Paper, published by a working group of the UK Health Data Research Alliance, details key steps that must be taken to improve data quality for use in research, clinical practice and policymaking by addressing biases in ethnicity data collection and use, to better inform public health decisions and pave the way for fairer, more effective healthcare.
- Principles of data access, providing the foundation for a standardised Data Access Agreement (DAA) template, designed for use across the network of Trusted Research Environments (TREs) and Secure Data Environments (SDEs) in the UK – A new Data Access Agreement (DAA) template for Secure Data Environments (SDEs) streamlines approval processes for researchers and accelerates research timelines, ensuring rigorous data protection standards while increasing efficiency and reducing costs.
Congratulations to all of our shortlisted candidates. The award winners will be announced in March 2025 so make sure to follow us for updates on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter) and our website.
Information on our Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Award will be available at a later date.
Impact at HDR UK
Our vision is for large-scale data to benefit every interaction with patients, every clinical trial and every biomedical discovery, and to transform public health. Our recently published Impact Report shares stories and successes of the HDR UK community, who are advancing health data research.
