1. Realising MRC’s Vision in Health and Bioinformatics MRC Open Council Meeting July 2014 Janet Valentine Head of Population Health and Informatics

2. Vast amount of biomedical and population data Population and clinical studies High-throughput technologies Imaging Health records Administrative data Other data – loyalty cards, mobile phones, internet, social networks Data for discovery and health improvement

3. Vast amount of biomedical and population data Population and clinical studies High-throughput technologies Imaging Health records Administrative data Other data – loyalty cards, mobile phones, internet, social networks Opportunity – new scientific discoveries from large-scale data on a scope and scale not previously possible Challenge – to create necessary infrastructure, resources, capacity, legal and regulatory frameworks to realise opportunity Data for discovery and health improvement

4. An integrated informatics research landscape Enabling technologies & infrastructure Developing capacity & expertise Funding for innovative research High throughput data Cohorts Trials BioBanks Educational Environmental Social Data NHS Clinical Data Patient groups Demographic data

5. To harness vast sources of biological, clinical, population and environmental research and routine data to gain new scientific insights and advance patient and public health Five elements underpinning delivery of MRC’s vision Supporting cutting edge research using large datasets Building capacity and skills in analysing large and complex data Enabling technologies, tools and infrastructure Developing trusted research environments to protect confidentiality and privacy within appropriate governance frameworks Policies that encourage data discovery, sharing and access MRC’s vision in health and bioinformatics

6. Sharing your patient record can help researchers save and improve lives

7. MRC’s data research investments Population and patient cohorts and clinical trials Over 2.2m people in the UK participate in population cohort studies High throughout science – omics, imaging, Phenome centre Stratified medicine Dementia Platform – integral informatics component Clinical Research Infrastructure call Over £80m invested in informatics initiatives

8. Strengthen health informatics research £19m funding in MRC coordinated 10 funders call to fund four health informatics research centres (eHIRCS) Manchester, UCL, Dundee, Swansea – 19 universities, 2 MRC Units Aim of the HIRCs Analyse & link health records with research data and other datasets Build capacity in data linkage and health informatics research Additional £20m capital to create distributed virtual institute across the four eHIRCs - Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research Joint strategy across Farr Sites Digital infrastructure and safe environments to share data Physical co-location of academics and NHS

9. Farr London UCL, LSHTM, Queen Mary, Public Health England Farr Scotland Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews, Aberdeen, Strathclyde, MRC HGU, NHS NSS Farr CIPHER Swansea, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Leicester, Sussex, NWIS, Public Health Wales Farr @ HeRC N8 Manchester, York, Lancaster, Liverpool, Sheffield, AHSNs

10. Network outward facing - engaging the wider research and stakeholder communities Each workstream is co-chaired by Farr and an expert outside the Farr Workstreams Methodology Best practice in governance Public engagement Capacity building Partnership building – NHS, industry Cohort study linkage development Communication UK Health Informatics Research Network

11. Aims: Integration between genomics, complex phenotypes, and clinical data New infrastructure, tools, increased coordination and sharing capabilities Support career opportunities for computational scientists, technologists £39m capital and resource - 6 awards MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit UCL (incl. EMBL - Francis Crick Institute, EBI) University of Leeds University of Oxford University of Warwick (incl. Swansea, Cardiff) Imperial College Medical Bioinformatics call

12. Anticipated impact of informatics investments UK leadership Transformational science at scale Greater interoperability through use of standards Integration of heterogeneous data New partnerships – academic, NHS and industry Increase UK skill base Economic growth Public and patient advocacy