Who we work with
UK LLC was founded upon the need to collaborate; bringing together people, expertise, technology and trust in service to the UK’s Longitudinal Population Study community.
Our Partners
University College London (UCL)
Professor Nish Chaturvedi and Professor George Ploubidis are Members of UK LLC’s Executive Group, providing input into overarching decision-making and governance. UCL’s Centre for Longitudinal Studies hosts four of our partner Longitudinal Population Studies – 1958 National Child Development Study, Next Steps, British Cohort Study and the Millennium Cohort Study. Team members from these studies share expertise and contributing to our decision-making through regular study manager meetings.
Meet the team (coming soon)
The Secure e-Research Platform (SeRP UK) hosted by Swansea University.
SeRP UK, based at Swansea University, provisions our Trusted Research Environment, which enables data sharing, linkage and analysis at scale, ensuring that sensitive longitudinal data are managed securely and in compliance with legal, ethical, and data protection standards. It operates a safe, secure and controlled environment that’s accredited to the highest international standard (ISO 27001).
Meet the team (coming soon)
City St George’s, University of London, in collaboration with University of Leicester
City St George’s, University of London and University of Leicester work in collaboration to develop detailed geospatial maps of air quality, noise, and green/open spaces and estimating exposure for UK Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS). This work provides the foundation for environmental health research and represents the largest harmonisation to date of exposure assessment for UK LPS.
These air quality, noise and green/open space maps form part of our place-based data.
Meet the team (coming soon)
Working across our community
Current Programmes and Projects
DATAMIND
Building on its previous work, DATAMIND continues to collaborate with us and several other discoverability platforms in the UK, including the Health Data Research (HDR) UK Innovation Gateway and the Catalogue of Mental Health Measures. These platforms include information about the wealth of data collected as part of UK-based cohort and clinical studies, and DATAMIND remains committed to supporting the inclusion and coordinated representation of mental health data across them.
DATAMIND continues to work alongside us to improve transparency and accessibility in longitudinal health research, developing resources such as glossaries, infographics, and accessible study summaries to empower collaboration among researchers, students, and the public.
Harmony
Led by University College London, Harmony is a data harmonisation project that uses Natural Language Processing to help researchers make better use of existing data from different studies by supporting them with the harmonisation of various measures and items used in different studies.
We are collaborating with Harmony to embed the Harmony tool within our data catalogue, to better enable researchers to quickly identify the datasets that are relevant to their research.
This project is part of the Future Data Services programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Optimizing Data Professional Success: Identifying Skills, Career Trajectories, and Training Requirements for Enhanced Data Service Delivery
Led by the University of the West of England, the project aims to enhance the effectiveness of data professionals by focusing on three key areas: Identifying essential skills, mapping career trajectories, and identifying training requirements. By focusing on these areas, the project seeks to improve data service delivery, leading to more successful project outcomes and a more competent data workforce. We are part of the cross-disciplinary leadership team.
This project is part of the Future Data Services programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Led by Dr Anya Skatova at the Digital Footprints Lab, University of Bristol, this project aims to identify the best way to link smart data from loyalty cards to data from longitudinal population studies. Linking shopping records with these long-term studies can improve the data. It can also offer new insights into how people behave and trends in the population.
We are facilitating the Smart Data Participant and Public Involvement and Engagement Working Group to enable participant and public insight into the acceptability for linking participant retailer loyalty card records to UK Longitudinal Population Studies.
This project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
NFDI4Health is the German National Research Data Infrastructure for Personal Health Data – dealing with data generated in epidemiological and public health studies and clinical trials.
Both our organisations received funding from the Medical Research Council to hold two in-person workshops to share best practice.
Health Data Research UK Governance and Ethics Workstream
Our Director, Andy Boyd, is co-lead for Health Data Research UK’s (HDR UK) Trust and Transparency theme of activity. With co-lead Cassie Smith and the team, Andy is working to help facilitate the development of an efficient governance framework for UK population data science which has an interdisciplinary approach and ensures the co-involvement of the public across all activities.
Within this, Andy and our team are contributing to the HDR UK Social & Environmental Determinants of Health driver programme which is developing secure system-wide approaches to integrating environmental exposure data with health data to help inform investigations into cross-cutting questions such as the role of air quality and noise on health and wellbeing outcomes.
This work is funded by UK Research and Innovation as part of an ambitious set of programmes addressing securing better health, ageing and wellbeing.
Completed Programmes and Projects
DATAMIND
DATAMIND collaborates with several discoverability platforms in the UK. These platforms include information about the wealth of data collected as part of UK-based cohort and clinical studies, and DATAMIND supported the inclusion and coordinated representation of mental health data across them.
DATAMIND works alongside us to improve transparency and accessibility in longitudinal health research, developing resources such as glossaries, infographics, and accessible study summaries to empower collaboration among researchers, students, and the public. This project was funded by the Medical Research Council.
A Work And Health Research Data (AWAHRD) Platform
This project comprised a consortium led by the University of Manchester’s Thomas Ashton Institute and the University of Glasgow, in collaboration with King’s College London and the Universities of Bristol and Edinburgh, including the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC).
The project explored whether it would be possible to develop a comprehensive data platform, bringing together information on data sets that could be used and linked to investigate relationships between work and health.
UK LLC contributed by engaging with members from its Public Involvement Programme (link to new page when active), who worked with us on public perspectives on the understanding, acceptability and use of occupational data in research.
Review the AWAHRD summary inforgraphics.
This programme was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
Led by the University of Manchester’s Thomas Ashton Institute in collaboration with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the project’s primary aim is to explore the potential of integrating various data sources to enhance HSE’s capacity for evaluating health and work-related policies and interventions.
Improving Transparency of Processes for Accessing Health Data for Research Purposes
Our team won, through competition, a project to enhance the transparency of health data access processes for researchers and the public. Our project developed an infographic series in partnership with our Public Advisory Group, aiming to raise awareness among Longitudinal Population Study participants of some of the most important laws and legal principles involved in the use of their data for public good research.
Nineteen projects were funded through this initiative led by the UK Health Data Research Alliance, launched by Health Data Research UK and funded by the Medical Research Council.
Key Infrastructure Collaborations
UK Longitudinal Population Studies
The UK’s uniquely rich history and diversity of longitudinal research, combined with our secure linkage, allows for the integration of detailed health, socio-economic, and administrative data, enabling rich, cross-disciplinary research.
A national initiative dedicated to unlocking the potential of the UK’s Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS) across social, economic, and biomedical research. Our Director, Andy Boyd, alongside CLOSER’s Director, Jennifer Symonds, serves as an LPS Infrastructure Chair on the PRUK leadership team. Together, they provide strategic guidance on the needs, synergies, and gaps within the existing LPS infrastructure, ensuring a coordinated and impactful approach to shaping its development and narrative.
UKDS is the principal repository for economic, population, and social research data in the UK. As hosts of the largest trusted digital archive of its kind, UKDS’s expertise in the collection, preservation, and dissemination of quality data is the culmination of nearly sixty years of sustained investment by the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK’s research data infrastructure.
Organisations we work with
