The FOCUS-5 project is showing how we can make health data research easier, safer, and more consistent across the NHS – helping researchers answer important health questions without ever moving data from its secure home.
Sensitive health data is vital for research, but the way it is accessed and analysed is changing. Instead of moving large volumes of data into one central store – which the public has said it generally does not support – researchers are increasingly using federated analysis.
This method allows approved researchers to run their analysis across different Trusted Research Environments (TREs) – also known as Secure Data Environments (SDEs) – with the data itself staying safely in place.
FOCUS-5 (Federating Operations and Collaborations Using the Five Safes) is one of the DARE UK Early Adopter projects launched in January 2025. Led by the University of Liverpool in collaboration with the Lancashire and South Cumbria SDE, Wessex SDE, Arjuna Technologies Ltd and Epigeny, the project is exploring how federated research can be made safer, more efficient and more consistent across the UK.
At the heart of FOCUS-5 is the Five Safes framework – a set of principles designed to ensure the people, projects, settings, data and outputs involved in research are all secure and trustworthy. The project is evaluating the use of Five Safes Research Object Crates (5SROCs) as a technical standard for documenting research workflows across SDEs. These act like structured “containers” of information, showing clearly how data is managed, accessed and analysed across environments.
What FOCUS-5 hopes to achieve
By the end of the project, the FOCUS-5 team wants to show how health data research can be done more safely, consistently and transparently across the UK. Their goals include:
- Making 5SROCs ready for use in the NHS – ensuring these digital “containers” for research workflows work smoothly across NHS Secure Data Environments.
- Joining up with tools like DataSHIELD – creating a practical blueprint for how 5SROCs can link with trusted software that lets researchers analyse data securely without ever seeing the raw information.
- Opening up the conversation with the public – producing clear, accessible resources that explain how federated analysis protects privacy while still enabling valuable research.
- Paving the way for wider adoption – setting out roadmaps to help other NHS SDEs and research teams take up these approaches, creating more standardised and efficient ways of working.
Progress so far
The FOCUS-5 team has already made great progress, including:
- Extended ‘CR8TOR’ – a tool that helps SDEs create, validate, and update 5SROCs. CR8TOR can now capture and manage essential information in a Five Safes-aligned format, enhancing how data is used and shared for research.
- Adapted DataSHIELD for application in SDEs, ensuring compatibility with K8TRE. This includes the automatic adjustment of computing resources— with the infrastructure only using the computing power needed at any given time. This optimises performance while reducing unnecessary costs and environmental impact.
- Installed DataSHIELD in a test environment in Lancashire and South Cumbria SDE and Wessex SDE.
- Successfully carried out a federated analysis on test data across the two SDEs.
- Worked with members of the public and partners to ensure explanations of technical concepts underpinning the project are clear and transparent. Building trust through open communication is central to the project’s ethos.
How FOCUS-5 supports TREvolution
FOCUS-5 directly supports TREvolution, the DARE UK initiative transforming how TREs operate and work together across the UK by testing how new standards and tools can be embedded in real-world NHS settings.
By developing and validating approaches enabled by TREvolution to make federated analysis more consistent and trustworthy, the project is helping to build the foundations for a more connected, secure and efficient UK-wide data research infrastructure.
Together with other Early Adopters, FOCUS-5 is showing how innovation and collaboration can unlock safer, more effective and larger scale sensitive data research, ensuring that public trust remains at the core.
About the DARE UK Early Adopters
The DARE UK Early Adopters are pioneering projects helping to put the standards and innovations assembled through TREvolution into practice. Working across more than 10 Trusted Research Environments (TREs), including five regional NHS SDEs in England, these projects bring together researchers, TRE operators and members of the public. Their role is to test the new approaches in real-world settings, making sure they are practical, effective and safe before being more widely adopted for research in the public interest.
