The Sudlow Review | Uniting the UK's Health Data: Implications for Scotland | Usher Connects

This Usher Connects event explored the future of health and care data research in Scotland and across the UK, celebrating the appointment of Professor Cathie Sudlow as Director of the Usher Institute. The event built on her influential publication, The Sudlow Review: Uniting the UK’s Health Data.

Cathie opened the session, followed by a panel discussion featuring specialists in health data, highlighting the opportunities and impact of recent UK-wide investments in data infrastructure. The session included a virtual audience Q&A and open discussion.

The event concluded with a drinks reception and networking opportunity for in-person attendees visiting the newly opened Usher Building at the Edinburgh BioQuarter - designed to support collaboration, innovation and impact.

This event has now ended, but a recording of the event can be viewed below.

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16.00 | Registration opens

16.30 | Welcome and introductions (Professor Sarah Cunningham-Burley)

16.35 | Presentation (Professor Cathie Sudlow)

16.50 | Panel discussion and Q&A session (Dr Christian Cole, Professor Roger Halliday, Kathy Harrison, Professor Cathie Sudlow)

17.45 | Closing comments (Professor Sarah Cunningham-Burley)

18.00 | Drinks reception and networking opportunity

19.00 | Close

Christian (Chris) Cole is Reader in Health Informatics and Academic Co-Director of Health Informatics Centre (HIC) at the School of Medicine, University of Dundee. His research interests are in developing tools and infrastructure to advance data analysis capabilities within Trusted Research Environments (TREs) where healthcare data are securely held. He is also interested in making AI/ML more directly clinically relevant by using real-world datasets to better model the diversity of data.

Chris is also Director of the Alleviate Pain Data Hub which is an HDR UK national data hub specialising pain and chronic pain with the Advanced Pain Discovery Platform (APDP) consortium. The aim of Alleviate is to be the hub for UK pain data in a federated manner by removing data silos. Pain data is made more accessible and FAIR via the OMOP common data model in collaboration with HDR UK.

He has held previous roles as a Principle Investigator in Data Science at the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science (LRCFS) and lead of the Data Analysis Group (DAG) in the School of Life Science at the University of Dundee.

Photograph of Christian Cole, University of Dundee

Find out more about Research in HIC

An experienced medical and family sociologist, Sarah Cunningham-Burley's research currently focusses on the social and ethical contexts of medical technologies, data science, engagement, health and disease using predominantly qualitative methods.

Sarah is Co-Director of the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society, supported by the Wellcome Trust, which is developing interdisciplinary research across the humanities and social sciences relevant to biomedicine, public health and health care.

Visit the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society

Roger Halliday is CEO at Research Data Scotland, providing leadership to improving public wellbeing through transforming how data is used in research, innovation and insight.

Roger was Scotland’s Chief Statistician from 2011 to 2022. During that time he was also Scottish Government Chief Data Officer (2017-20), and jointly led Scottish Government COVID Analytical Team during the pandemic. Before that, he worked in the Department of Health in England as a policy analyst managing evidence for decision making across NHS issues. He became an honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow in 2019.

Visit the Research Data Scotland website

Kathy Harrison is a Trusted Research Environment professional leading the DataLoch Programme – DataLoch is a collaboration between NHS Lothian and The University of Edinburgh that enables access to routine health care data within a TRE.

Kathy is an experienced programme manager with a history of supporting significant research studies with access to linked primary and secondary care data and winner of the Digital Leader Award in the 2025 Digital Health and Care Awards.

DataLoch is one of four regional Safe Haven’s in Scotland that represent the route for researchers to access unconsented health data at scale.

Explore DataLoch’s Data Use Register

Professor Cathie Sudlow OBE is the Head of School of Public Health Sciences and the Director of the Usher Institute at The University of Edinburgh.

Cathie has vast experience leading on major research initiatives in UK health data science for several years, including roles as Chief Scientist for UK Biobank, inaugural Director of the British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre, and Chief Scientist of Health Data Research UK.

In November 2024, she published an independent review for UK Government of the UK’s health data landscape, making recommendations that are already influencing UK government policy in health and the life sciences.

She is currently also Director of the UKRI Adolescent Health Study, and has expertise in epidemiology, population health, large-scale health data, data science and neurology.