Each year, HDR UK awards prizes for excellence in health data research. Winners were selected by a panel of experts, and presented at the HDR UK Scientific Conference on Wednesday 14 December, 2022.  

Professor Andrew Morris, Director of HDR UK, said:  

“This year we have seen significant achievements made across the field of health data research. Using large-scale data, advanced analytics and innovative developments in data governance, we have directly informed policy decisions and healthcare practices that, while often rooted in the pandemic, will make a difference to health outcomes long into the future. 

 

“Our annual awards aim to recognise the people behind the data research in our scientific community. Thank you to all the applicants for sharing their experiences and impacts with us this year, and huge congratulations to our winners.” 

Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement Award  

Patient and public involvement and engagement is essential to HDR UK’s work. We want the views and ideas of patients and public to be embedded into each stage of research, to ensure public data is used in a way that is transparent and trustworthy, and meaningfully improves lives.  

This award celebrates best practice and innovation in public involvement and engagement, using criteria in line with the UK Standards for Public Involvement, across all aspects of research, infrastructure and service development, within HDR UK and beyond.  

Winner: Gut Reaction  

Gemma Winsor, Sarah Sleet, Amanda Stranks, Mark Avery, Eleanor Hall, Charlie Clarke, John Bradley, Neil Walker, Nathalie Kingston, Mary Kasanicki, Prof Miles Parkes, Laetitia Pele 

“With the support of Crohn’s & Colitis UK,  Gut Reaction’s  Patient Advisory Committee was formed at inception to facilitate patient involvement in planning and decision-making. Gut Reaction is now a well-established data resource supporting patient-centered research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.  

 

“Of note, Gut Reaction has done a significant amount of work developing training materials to support patient involvement in health data research.  The panel believes this to be an exceptional resource and a contribution to PPIE that will remain valuable well into the future.”

 

— The Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement Award Panel 

Shortlisted Nominees: 


Team of the Year Award  

Team working is core to HDR UK’s mission. This award celebrates collaborative endeavours by groups of researchers, innovators, technologists, triallists and more working together within HDR UK and beyond.   

As well as being diverse and inclusive in membership, the winning team will exemplify HDR UK’s values of transparency, optimism, courage, respect and humility.  

Winner: MuM-PreDiCT 

Krishnarajah Nirantharakumar, Adeniyi Fagbamigbe, Amaya Azcoaga-Lorenzo Anuradhaa Subramanian, Astha Anand, Beck Taylor ,  Catherine Nelson-Piercy Christine Damase-Michel , Colin McCowan Christopher Yau, Dermot O’Reilly , Helen Dolk ,Gillian Santorelli , Holly Hope , Jonathan Kennedy , Kelly-Ann , Kathryn M Abel ,Louise Locock , Maria Loane , Mairead Black , Ngawai Moss , Peter Brocklehurst , Rachel Plachcinski , Richard Riley , Sinead Brophy , Shakila Thangaratinam, Utkarsh Agrawal , Zoe Vowles , Siang Ing Lee , Neil Cockburn, Katherine Phillips, Megha Singh, Yuangen Li  , Francesca Crowe , Stephanie Hanley,Steven Wambua , Mohamed Mhereeg ,Charles Gadd , Lisa Kent, Sharon McCann, Jemma Healey , Sudasing Pathirannehelage Buddhika Hemali Sudasinghe   

“A consortium of eight universities from all four UK nations with a multidisciplinary team, comprising of health data scientists, clinicians and patient and public representatives, was established for MuM-PreDiCT. Their vision was to use data-driven research to characterize and understand the determinants and consequences of multimorbidity in pregnant women; and to predict and prevent multimorbidity and its adverse consequences in women and their offspring.” 

“The team is recognised for their leadership, inclusivity – particularly their involvement and support of early career researchers. The panel applaud the team’s public and patient involvement and engagement which shows real evidence of co-production in an underserved area.”

— The Team of the Year Award Panel 

Shortlisted Nominees: 

  • EAVE II – Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 PIs: Vittal Katikireddi (University of Glasgow), Colin McCowan (University of St Andrews), Mark Woolhouse, Aziz Sheikh, Igor Rudan, Sarah Stock, (University of Edinburgh), Lewis Ritchie (University of Aberdeen), Colin Simpson (Victoria University of Wellington), Rachael Wood, Jim McMenamin, Josie Murray (Public Health Scotland); Public Advisory Group (some names shortened out of respect for privacy): Sandra Jayacodi (PAG Co-Lead), David Weatherill (PAG Co-Lead), Carrol Lamouline, Deb Smith, Emily Lam, Eve Smyth, Farzana Kausir, JC, Joanna C, Kamil Sterniczuk, Lynn Laidlaw, Peter McDade, Philip Bell, Tamara Jayacodi, Hameed Khan; Analysts: Steven Kerr, Ahmar Shah, Tristan Millington, Fasih Haider, Sam Hillman, Fatima Almaghrabi, Holly Tibble, Calum Macdonald, Karen Jeffrey, Luke Daines, Ting Shi (University of Edinburgh), Utkarsh Agrawal (University of St Andrews), Ronan McCabe (University of Glasgow), Sharon Kennedy, Zoe Grange, Chris Sullivan (Public Health Scotland); Professional services: Lana Woolford, Vicky Hammersley, Natalia Reglinska-Matveyev Gabriella Linning, Laura Brook, Calder Hudson (University of Edinburgh), Amie Willson (Public Health Scotland).  
  • UKHSA SIREN Team Victoria Hall, Susan Hopkins, Public Health Wales, Public Health Scotland, Public Health Agency Northern Ireland, Colin Brown, Michelle Cole, Sarah Foulkes and others 

HDR UK Impact of the Year Award  

Our ultimate goal is to use health data to improve people’s lives. This award looks at work from the last 12 months that has delivered impact to clinical practice or policy through algorithms, software or research publications.   

In line with our commitment to public and patient involvement and engagement, our shortlist have all involved patients, service users, carers or the public at each appropriate stage of their work.   

Winner: Economic analysis of intermittent versus continuous cetuximab in KRAS wild-type patients with metastatic colorectal cancer  Raymond H.Henderson, Declan French, Ethna McFerrana, Richard Adams , Harpreet Wasan, Robert Glynne-Jones, David Fisher, Susan Richman, Philip D. Dunne, Lisa Wilde, Timothy  S. Maughan, Richard Sullivan, Mark Lawler  

“Using a combination of a health economic modelling and in-depth data analysis, this research indicated that providing a break in treatment to patients with advanced bowel cancer could not only benefit a patient’s response to treatment and their quality-of-life but could also help save ~£1.2 billion for the National Health Service in England. 

“The data informed policy – contributing to NHS England’s decision to introduce treatment breaks for patients with bowel cancer nationally. 

“The panel applaud the work’s translation into policy in a short time frame, which is often very difficult, alongside its focus on patient quality of life. The panel found the study presents a strong analysis and strongly demonstrates the potential of using health data for health economics.” 

Shortlisted nominees: 

  • Data and Connectivity National Core Study Andrew Morris, Lara Edwards, Ruby Kell, David Seymour, Sarah Fullegar, Ruby Kell, Sinduja Manohar, Paola Quattroni, Nada Karrar, Chris Milner, Alison Elderfield, Lucy Gould, Cassie Smith, Edel McNamara, and the UK TRE delivery partners 
  • Association of COVID-19 With Major Arterial and Venous Thrombotic Diseases: A Population-Wide Cohort Study of 48 Million Adults in England and Wales Rochelle Knight, Venexia Walker, Samantha Ip,Jennifer A. Cooper, Thomas Bolton, Spencer Keene, Rachel Denholm, Ashley Akbari, Hoda Abbasizanjani, Fatemeh Torabi, Efosa Omigie, Sam Hollings, Teri-Louise North, Renin Toms, Xiyun Jiang, Emanuele Di Angelantonio, Spiros Denaxas, Johan H. Thygesen, Christopher Tomlinson, Ben Bray, Craig J. Smith, Mark Barber, Kamlesh Khunti, George Davey Smith, Nishi Chaturvedi, Cathie Sudlow, William N. Whiteley, Angela M. Wood, Jonathan A.C. Sterne and the CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT Consortium and the Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing COVID-19 National Core Study  

Reproducibility Recognitions  

Reproducibility is central to HDR UK’s values – the ability to repeat research, reuse techniques and verify results is central to developing the established understanding that new treatments, healthcare practices and improvements to public health are built on.  

We asked the health data research community to tell us about the practices they use to make their research reproducible and re-useable – whether that be open-source software, reporting guidelines, or FAIR data.  

Winners: 

  • Co-Connect Phil Quinlan, Gordon Milligan, Tom Giles , Joe Best , Sam Cox, Philip Appleby, Christian Cole, Andrew Hadfield, Scott Horban, Emily Jefferson, Daniel Lea, Calum MacDonald, Erum Masood, Shahzad Mumtaz, Vasiliki Panagi, Esmond Urwin, Jenny Johnston, Robert Santos, Christopher Hall, David Schlessinger, Simon Tarr, Joseph Lavagna, Ipek Birced, Jill Hampton, Claire Collins, Sam Rising, Susan Hopkins, Aziz Sheikh
     
  • HDR UK Text Analytics Richard Dobson, Angus Roberts, Thomas Searle; Honghan Wu; Vlad Dinu; Xi Bai; Alex Handy; Elizabeth Ford; Kerina Jones; James Teo; Georgios Gkoutos; Wai Keong Wong; Amos Folarin; Daniel Bean; Simon Ball; Elizabeth Sapey; Rob Harland; Nigel Collier; William Whiteley; Luke Slater; Andreas Karwath; Sarah Wang; Amy Gosling; Natalie Fitzpatrick  
  • The Phenotype Library Natalie Fitzpatrick, Martin Chapman, Vasa Curcin, Sprios Denaxas, Chuang Gao, George Gkoutos, Emily Jefferson, Andreas Karwath, Shahzad Mumtaz, Helen Parkinson, Daniel Thayer, Leandro Tramma, Harry Hemmingway 
  • PAMepi Juliane Fonseca de Oliveira, Moreno S Rodrigues, Pablo IP Ramos, Nivea B da Silva, Arthur R de Azevedo, Andressa CS Ferreira, Felipe AC Pereira, Fabio MHS Filho, Luis IO Valencia  
  • RADAR-Base Yatharth Ranjan, Amos Folarin, Pauline Conde, Heet Sankesara, Zulqarnain Rashid, Richard Dobson 
  • COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT consortium Rouven Priedon, Tom Bolton, John Nolan, Mehrdad Mizani, Zach Welshman, Ashley Akbari, Fatemeh Torabi, Hoda Abbasizanjani, Cathie Sudlow, Lynn Morrice, Samaira Khan, Kate McAllister, Angela Wood, Spiros Denaxas and all other members of the CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-IMPACT consortium  

Hidden Role Recognitions  

Taking inspiration from the Hidden Ref, HDR UK want to celebrate the practices and people who have had an impact on research delivery.  We are pleased to congratulate our inaugural Hidden Role recipients who  represent the diversity of health data science including programme managers, administrative staff, PPIE leads, technologists, and more.  

Winners:  

Erum Masood, Jenny Johnston, Joe Best, Laetitia Pele, Vicky Hammersley, Natalia Reglinska-Matveyev, Lana Woolford. Alecsandru Vitoc, Aditya Acharya, Krishna Gokhale, Megha Singh, Yuangen Li, Rachel Plachcinski, and Ngawai Moss. 

Download the awards brochure