New neurological data platform aims to accelerate brain research

A neurological data platform has launched at Swansea University to help research teams manage complex data and develop secure resources for future studies.

The Neurological Data Platform (NDP) brings together secure research infrastructure, specialist data services and established governance, reducing the need for individual programmes to build their own systems.

Delivered by the Secure eResearch Platform (SeRP), NDP builds on more than a decade of experience supporting research programmes and Trusted Research Environments, including the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK) Data Portal.

Emma Squires, co-director of NDP, said: “Some of the most exciting research programmes in neuroscience are generating incredibly rich and complex data, but every new programme faces many of the same challenges around infrastructure, governance, data management and future access.

“NDP means they do not have to start from scratch.

“We can provide an established, trusted foundation and work with scientific teams to build the data capability around their programme.”

Neurological studies increasingly generate complex datasets, including clinical information, imaging, genomic data, biomarkers and information reported by participants.

Managing these datasets requires specialist teams, infrastructure and governance processes, which can take considerable time and investment to establish.

NDP provides shared infrastructure that can be used across multiple research programmes.

Each programme will operate through a dedicated NDP Hub, retaining its scientific leadership, identity, research community and appropriate governance arrangements.

The central platform will provide the infrastructure and operational support.

The platform will support research throughout its lifecycle, from developing and managing datasets to making information available for wider scientific use.

Research teams will be able to organise data as studies progress and prepare resources for secure access by other researchers when appropriate.

Squires said: “What is particularly important to us is that this is not simply about providing access to data at the end of a study.

“We can support programmes throughout the research lifecycle, helping them manage and develop their data as the science progresses and, when the time is right, make those resources discoverable and available for wider research.”

NDP already supports a growing community of research programmes covering dementia, traumatic brain injury, motor neuron disease, adolescent mental health and population research.

As part of the launch, the established DPUK Data Portal will become the NDP Dementias Hub.

The transition builds on DPUK’s work to make cohort, imaging, genomic and clinical data discoverable and securely accessible to the international dementia research community.

Simon Thompson, professor and co-director of NDP, said the shared approach would allow individual programmes to retain their scientific focus while benefiting from common infrastructure.

He said: “The strength of the NDP model is that programmes retain what makes them distinctive while benefiting from infrastructure and expertise that can be shared.

“Building these capabilities once, and developing them across multiple Hubs, gives us a more sustainable model and means that innovations developed for one research programme can benefit others across the platform.”

The developers aim to use the shared infrastructure to support new datasets, secure analysis, collaboration and future reuse of research data across neurological studies.