Showcase displays

From 2026 the Advanced Care Research Centre will look different than it does today. The PhD Academy will keep training future leaders, and our ACRC Fellows will continue their interdisciplinary research until December 2029. The research element of the initial £20m funding grant from Legal and General will conclude in December 2025 as originally planned. Our researchers and professional services staff will focus on finalising, publishing and disseminating current research, and will explore future possible funding opportunities, while our PhD students, ACRC Fellows, senior academic fellows and affiliated programmes continue the ACRC mission to enhance the quality and sustainability of care for individuals with multiple conditions in later life.

Visit our stall to meet some Fellows and Students, to find out more about the future of the ACRC.

Exhibitors: Stella Arakelyan, Jean Stafford and Jenn Yoo

DataLoch brings together health and social care data from across South-East Scotland (900,000 current population and 1.6 million people over time), including data from 90% of GP practices, at a unique level of depth and coverage. Through comprehensive linkage of these data, an holistic overview of health and wellbeing is possible.

Data for research and innovation

To ensure the quality and accuracy of the data, DataLoch works with experts – including NHS Lothian clinicians – to understand, improve, and document them.

DataLoch provides safe data access for clinical studies and health data research through a Trusted Research Environment. This platform offers extended capabilities – both hardware and software – for researchers from academia, clinical practice, and public- and private-sector organisations.

Improving research and innovation opportunities

DataLoch improves the potential for cutting-edge projects by: harmonising codes across primary and secondary care systems; curating new theme-specific databases (e.g. DataLoch Heart Disease Registry); integrating non-medical data to allow social determinants of health to be explored; and developing Natural Language Processing tools to gain further value from health records while preserving confidentiality.

Scottish Safe Haven Network

Alongside Scottish Safe Haven Network (SSHN) partners, DataLoch is piloting coordinated data access for those seeking detailed health data across Scotland. Significantly, this avoids the requirement for multiple applications to multiple data services, leading to swifter data access.

Together, SSHN partners play crucial roles in enabling access to detailed data to the right people for the right reasons, and supporting research and innovation that will improve population-wide health and wellbeing.

Exhibitors: Elvina Gountouna, Kathy Harrison and Zen Huang

DataLoch brings together health and social care data from across South-East Scotland (900,000 current population and 1.6 million people over time), including data from 90% of GP practices, at a unique level of depth and coverage. Through comprehensive linkage of these data, an holistic overview of health and wellbeing is possible.

A pivotal aspect of our service involves collaborating with researchers to refine and expand the datasets available for cutting-edge research.

DataLoch Registries: our theme-specific databases are developed around particular health conditions or disease themes. By working closely with expert clinicians and academics, we have produced registries for heart disease, respiratory conditions, and COVID-19, and we collaborate with Edinburgh Cancer Informatics on the DataLoch Cancer Registry. These databases define the core data for theme-related research projects and substantially simplify the data-selection process.

Expanding ground-breaking projects: we have enabled several projects through incorporating new datasets within our repository. Notable examples include:

• DL_2022_066 – Atul Anand’s research uses electronic Frailty Index (eFI) data, which are now available through our Metadata Catalogue.
• DL_2023_023 – Olivia Swann is incorporating insights on housing energy efficiencies through Energy Performance Certificates data.
• DL_2021-026 – Red Star AI utilises data from the Scottish Hip Fracture Audit, a dataset also available to other researchers through the DataLoch service.

DataLoch offers much more than a route to access routine health care data. We encourage researchers to engage with our team to explore further data sources and discuss how new datasets can be integrated to support specific project needs.

Exhibitors: Elvina Gountouna, Kathy Harrison and Zen Huang

DataLoch brings together health and social care data from across South-East Scotland (900,000 current population and 1.6 million people over time), including data from 90% of GP practices, at a unique level of depth and coverage. Through comprehensive linkage of these data, an holistic overview of health and wellbeing is possible.

Our Metadata Catalogue is the cornerstone of our data offering, featuring core data that have been cleaned, curated, and validated by collaborators within NHS Lothian. As well as GP and hospital records, we have also integrated datasets – e.g. lung-function testing and heart operations – as part of developing specific registries.

However, not all the data contained within health systems is catalogued within our metadata. This doesn't mean it isn't available. We add metadata to our catalogue as and when we understand it. This is often driven by researcher demand. Additionally, we have access to specialised datasets, including delirium-assessment 4AT scores, the Scottish Hip Fracture Audit, and falls data from the DATIX database.

We therefore encourage researchers to look beyond our Metadata Catalogue and speak to the DataLoch team to better understand our data coverage and explore the innovative research possibilities.

Exhibitors: Elvina Gountouna, Kathy Harrison and Zen Huang

The Edinburgh Clinical Trials Unit (ECTU) is a UK-CRC registered trials unit, located in the University of Edinburgh Usher Building within Edinburgh BioQuarter. ECTU provides an infrastructure to develop, design and deliver clinical trials and innovative research projects from Edinburgh-based investigators and via collaborations with other UK institutions and international teams.  ECTU works closely with the local sponsor, the Academic and Clinical Central Office for Research and Development (ACCORD), which is a partnership between the University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian. ECTU also has links with the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility (which is accredited for phase I studies), and the University of Edinburgh’s Research Support Office. ECTU has over seventy academic and professional services staff across several functional teams who work together to design and deliver clinical research projects that have a positive impact on human health. 

Find out more at Edinburgh Clinical Trials Unit 

Exhibitors: Aggie Tello and Tanya Tharakan

Edinburgh Innovations is The University of Edinburgh’s commercialisation service. We help researchers and students transform ideas into impact through industry engagement, consultancy, technology transfer, and enterprise support. Our expertise spans intellectual property protection, patent filing, and guiding startups and spinouts on their journey from concept to commercial success.

Exhibitor: Laura Milne

Generation Scotland is a research resource of over 40,000 people from across Scotland used to study the genetic and environmental basis of common diseases. The cohort reflects Scotland’s urban–rural and island population distribution and aligns well with national ethnicity data, particularly among younger participants (aged 12-18).

We combine genetic data from bio-samples, such as blood and saliva, and questionnaires, with electronic healthcare data. This includes GP and hospital admission records, which date back to the 1980s, as well as more unique datasets such as medical imaging, dental and optician data. This allows researchers to track long-term health outcomes without needing to re-contact participants.

Exhibitor: Robin Flaig

The Homes, Heat and Healthy Kids study examines how children’s homes affect their health. We have established a new group of parents facing challenges heating their homes. The Parent Group brings together parents from across Scotland and represents a number of minoritised ethnic communities and asylum seekers.

Our aim is to work together with the Parent Group to obtain qualifications for their involvement work.  

We used creative and inclusive methodologies to engage a group normally under-represented in research and ensure their work was recognised in a way most meaningful to them. The Parent Group are remunerated for their time, but we felt this did not adequately reflect their expertise and input. Together, we discussed how to most meaningfully recognise their work. Many members expressed they have found it hard to gain qualifications due to financial or time barriers, and would value this as an outcome of being involved.

The Parent Group co-designed the project from inception and co-produced a scientific animation to raise awareness of the link between cold homes and childhood chest infections. The Parent Group used the work they have done already co-producing the scientific animation, together with reflective interviews and videos about their lived experience.

The Parent Group worked with Media Education to attain a SCQF Level 3 qualification (Access to Media) and an SCQF Level 5 Community Leadership qualification. Media Education make films and podcasts with people about their lived experiences, working with people furthest from power to enable individuals to advocate for themselves to create positive social change.

Our work shows that working together with members of the public to decide how they would like to be renumerated for their contribution to research can produce innovative options with long-term benefits.

Find out more at The Homes, Heat and Healthy Kids study

Watch the Homes, Heat and Healthy Kids study animation

Exhibitors: Tracy Jackson, Laura Gonzalez Rienda and Olivia Swann

This display showcases the work of several current and former Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society affiliates (Andrea Ford, Lisa Raeder, Sone Erikainen) who study the social aspects of hormones.

One of our collaborations involved editing a collection of essays from scholars around the world called Hormonal Theory: A Rebellious Glossary, with each of the twenty chapters featuring a hormone and illustration by Elsa Paulson. The light boxes on display feature a selection of the drawings and a short accompanying text describing the slippery, curious, and controversial aspects of the hormonal context. These contexts include religious motivations for fertility treatments, puberty blockers for gender diverse youth, people seeking abortions, the intersection of race and health via stress, differences in how menopause is experienced around the world, and others.

This project celebrates and critically investigates the remarkable ways hormones span biological and social phenomena, and that medicine and bodies are always entangled with the social.

Exhibitor: Andrea Ford

ICU-HEART is an exciting clinician-led inter-disciplinary project with ambitious aims to directly improve patient care using routinely collected data. This poster provides an overview of the ICU-HEART programme with an emphasis on its multi-disciplinary and collaborative nature.

We outline the main goals and visions of our research; to use routine data to transform research in intensive care units (ICU) and to improve care for critically ill patients with cardiovascular disease. This display highlights how each component of the research programme is working towards achieving these aims, and how we are working together to do so.  

By integrating real-time healthcare data science into healthcare systems, we aim to improve the survival and quality of life of critically unwell patients. Specifically, we aim to develop and deliver the systematic diagnosis, prediction and prevention of heart attacks for the first time in critically ill patients, not only saving lives, but also improving their quality of life. To do this we have built a multi-disciplinary team, incorporating clinicians, data scientists, sociologists, philosophers, and patient representatives. This broad mix of skills will allow us to view the challenges we face from all angles, helping to improve the efficiency and inclusivity of our research.

Throughout this ambitious initial project our programme will develop the infrastructure and analytical approaches for subsequent research using patient-centred real-time data science in ICU environments. We believe this area of research has the potential to transform the provision of critical care, ultimately allowing us to save critically ill patients’ lives.

Exhibitors: Annemarie Docherty, Y.K. Ko, Craig Nicolson, Rosalyn Pearson, Ian Piper, Sinziana Radulescu and Stella Rhode

Medicine without doctors is now a possible and plausible future for healthcare. Already encroached upon by commercial and scientific stakeholders, doctors’ roles in the UK have recently changed dramatically. New technologies, patient activism, and economic upheaval draw power traditionally held by doctors.

This is a new Wellcome Trust six-year project reimaging the future of care, exploring whose voices are heard and whose knowledge is valued. Through four case-studies (abortion care, LGBQT+ health activism, autonomous systems, physician associates) the team will investigate whose authority, needs and values are emerging when the doctor’s is de-centred, and which are neglected and lost. 

Using engagement methods anchored in speculative tools of play, we combine perspectives from history, law, ethics, sociology, and Science Technology Studies (STS).

Join us at our display to learn more about our plans for this exciting project and explore with our team what a future without doctors could be.

Exhibitors: Jenny Bos, Dan Castro, Duc Nguyen, Nayha Sethi and Ingrid Young

Reducing deaths and the wider health and societal impacts of respiratory disease in Asia

Respiratory diseases are one of the three leading causes of death globally. Despite this, knowledge and awareness of respiratory health is low, and it does not get the priority attention needed from health systems, policymakers and funding agencies. The NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Respiratory Health (RESPIRE) challenges this by developing and delivering low-cost, scalable policy and clinical interventions to reduce respiratory disease in Asia.

RESPIRE’s research focuses on four key areas: infectious diseases; non-communicable and chronic diseases; preventable risk factors and the climate crisis. Four supporting platforms (stakeholder and community involvement and engagement; capacity-building, training and education; open science, data and methodologies; digital health and innovation) as well as a Knowledge Mobilisation Hub support research teams to maximise the impact of their studies, both locally and globally.

Since RESPIRE’s inception in 2016, over 60 research projects have been implemented in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In April 2025, the RESPIRE team was awarded a NIHR Impact Prize for life-changing work. Visit this poster to meet members of the RESPIRE team based in Edinburgh, and learn about their approaches to improving global respiratory health.

Find out more at RESPIRE 

Exhibitor: Dominique Balharry 

Poverty shapes health outcomes in so many ways, affecting us throughout our life course, and often leading to poorer health and shorter lifespans. Across Usher, staff and students are researching, studying and working for change across many of the dimensions of poverty and health inequality - from unequal ageing, to unhealthy homes, to homelessness, to social exclusion and discrimination, to fuel poverty and food insecurity, and more.

The aim of the emerging Poverty and Health Inequalities community of practice is to connect staff and students with shared interests - to share learning, work together more closely, and build meaningful partnerships and collaborations, in a way that is accountable to lived experience and prioritises dignity and respect.

Come and see us to find out more, share ideas, and get involved!

Exhibitors: ACRC PhD students

People with severe mental illness (SMI), including conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, live 10-15 years less than the general population. This excess risk of death is largely due to poorer physical health, and in particular a greater burden of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. These mental health disparities in physical health are a major health inequality issue.

People with SMI have a higher risk of, and poor outcomes from, these physical health conditions. Reasons for this are multifactorial and complex, but include disparities in receipt of clinical care for physical health. Over the past 10 years, this inter-disciplinary research programme has focused on using large-scale linked electronic health data from across the UK to investigate the links between SMI and: (1) the occurrence of physical diseases; (2) the outcomes from these physical diseases; and (3) the receipt of clinical care for physical disease.

This display will present a high-level summary of headline findings from projects, which stem from research using national data resources, including the Scottish Diabetes Research Network-National Diabetes Dataset and national Public Health Scotland datasets, and the CVD-COVID-UK/COVID-Impact resource. These will include: (1) SMI and life expectancy compared to the general population of Scotland over the past 20 years; (2) SMI and diabetes, including receipt of diabetes care; (3) SMI and cardiovascular disease, including care following heart attack. It will signpost areas of expansion, including a workstream within the UK Mental Health Platform’s Hub for Metabolic Psychiatry, and investigation of SMI and cancer care and survival.

Exhibitor: Kelly Fleetwood

The Usher Community Group organise events every month for members of the Usher Institute to unwind and socialise with their colleagues. We offer a wide range of events, including arts and crafts, book club, physical activity sessions, board games, photography contests, and cheese tasting!

The community group has gone through many iterations over the years, including during the pandemic when we all moved to this new shared space, but throughout there has been a commitment to making our workspace a friendly and welcoming environment.

Exhibitors: Susan Buckingham, Kate Britton and Rachael Lowe