IJPDS International Journal of Population Data Science IJPDS 2399-4908 Swansea University 10.23889/ijpds.v9i5.2609 9:5:125 A UK Specification for Trusted Research Environments Sood Hari 1 Li Simon 2 Machin Tim 3 Oldfield Katie 4 Chuter Antony 5 Beggs Jillian 5 Coleman Sonya 6 Kerr Dermot 6 Chalstrey Ed 1 Craddock Matthew 1 Madge Jim 1 Sarmiento-Perez David 1 Robinson James 1 O'Donovan Cian 3 O'Reilly Martin 1 Cole Christian 2 The Alan Turing Institute University of Dundee University College London Research Data Scotland Public Member Ulster University 18 09 2024 2024 9 5 2609 This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This article is available from the IJPDS website at: https://ijpds.org/article/view/2609 Objectives

The need for Trusted Research Environments (TREs) is clear. Several influential reports have highlighted that personal or sensitive data which have been collected for operational, commercial or governmental reasons need to be managed securely in an environment that encourages best practices.

TREs are designed to enable only authorised projects and researchers access to sensitive data whilst minimising risk of data exposure. Yet the TRE landscape has grown organically over at least the last decade resulting in heterogeneous environments, making  it harder for data to be discovered, shared and used for public benefit.

A baseline specification for TREs is required.

 Approach

We engaged with around 60 organisations covering government, industry, health and academia through regular, online, shared spaces or “Collaboration Cafés”. We also embedded the public voice within the project by having members of the public within the research team and developed a series of workshops to include and reflect their input to the architecture. The whole project was developed in the open to instil trustworthiness.

 Results

The SATRE project has produced a reference TRE architecture and implementation through significant engagement with the UK TRE community. This baseline specification for UK TREs includes a set of four pillars, 28 capabilities and 160 statements.

 Conclusions and Implications

An open and transparent TRE specification and architecture for a wide range of stakeholders has been developed. TREs can now use the SATRE specification to evaluate their environments against a common baseline.