Support for researchers
We’re here to reduce the administrative burden and give you more time to focus on the research itself.
Full research lifecycle support
Data Connect offers researchers a full suite of support services throughout the research lifecycle - including technical, legal and contractual governance. We’re here to reduce the administrative burden and give you more time to focus on the research itself.
We help you access and make the most of health and social care data. Our team can help tidy up the data and make it ‘research ready’ through processing. If you require guidance, we can also advise on best practice.
Plan your research
We can help support your research planning - advising and supporting with aspects of data acquisition and management.
- Find relevant data
- Using our internal knowledge we can suggest appropriate data sources and recommend our existing data assets
- Data management
- Understanding data sources and applying for data
- Managing the ingress and storage of data
- Assisting with data management plans and organising removal of data on completion of projects
- Project management
- Managing the delivery of research projects to ensure research is delivered on time, in scope and within budget.
- Public and patient involvement and engagement (PPIE) support
- We have direct links to provide you with input from members of the public or patients. Read more on our public involvement
- Funding support
- Identifying grant opportunities and supporting with bid writing
- Public and patient involvement and engagement support
Apply for data
When submitting an application to access data we can help you:
- Understand the legal basis for data access
- Complete a Data Management Plan
- Complete Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) and Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) documents
- Complete Data Access Request Service (DARS) applications with NHS England
- Complete data applications to gain access to existing Data Connect data assets
Access data
We can help you to securely access your data. This includes helping you with:
- Technical data support, including:
- Hosting data in the University’s Secure Data Service
- Data cleaning and processing
- Providing technical architecture and data flows
- Developing data pipelines
- Creating research databases
- Support to access other (non-University of Sheffield) Trusted Research Environments and Secure Data Environments (following governance approvals) including:
- NHS England (formerly NHS Digital)
- HDRUK Health Data Research Hubs - access data through any of the HDRUK Health Data Research Hubs or to find health data through their metadata repository, the HDRUK Innovation Gateway
- Yorkshire and Humber Secure Data Environment
- South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board Data Service
- Data platform management
- Access to the University of Sheffield Secure Data Environment
Virtual machine configuration to meet computational needs
- Access to the University of Sheffield Secure Data Environment
- Data deletion at project end
- Confirmation that all project data is removed from the Secure Data Environment
- Support to complete data deletion certificate
Make connections
We can help connect you with:
- Academics and research groups
- Regional public health experts, policy makers and practitioners
- Regional social care experts, policy makers and practitioners
- Funding agencies
- Public and patient contributors