SATRE 2.0 sets new standard for secure data research collaboration

Many organisations deal with vast amounts of health records, census findings, finance information and other forms of sensitive data every day. This data may be used for research for the public good but this requires organisations and researchers to adhere to data privacy laws and stringent security regulations. Trusted Research Environments (TREs), also known as Secure Data Environments or Safe Havens, are a secure mechanism for enabling this research. 

Dundee’s Standard Architecture for Trusted Research Environments (SATRE) is an open framework that helps organisations demonstrate their ability to provide secure access to sensitive data through TREs transparently and openly.

The University has today announced the release of SATRE 2.0, a major update to the UK's leading framework for TREs. The new specification enables organisations to securely collaborate on sensitive data without moving information from its original location.

SATRE 2.0 facilitates the growing need to join multiple organisations’ data together for research, without the need to move all the data to one place. This provides flexibility, trust and equivalence in a transparent and informed way. Federated research will support large-scale studies in areas such as health, population data, social science and public policy, where valuable datasets are often held by different organisations.

Dr Christian Cole, PI of the SATRE project and Academic Director of Dundee’s Health Informatics Centre, said, “SATRE was developed with the UK Trusted Research Environment community to capture and share best practice in the secure use of sensitive data. 

“The widespread adoption of the framework demonstrates the sector's commitment to transparency and trust. With SATRE 2.0, we are providing a common foundation for organisations to collaborate securely across institutional and geographical boundaries, supporting the next generation of Federated data-intensive research.”

First published in 2023, SATRE has been widely adopted and informed policy at the individual level of TREs. The framework has helped TREs demonstrate their equivalence to stakeholders and allow them to map their accreditation pathway to meet formal national and international accreditations.

In a recent landscape review, nearly 50% of all organisations across the UK who provide access to sensitive data via TREs have aligned themselves with the SATRE specification. 

The SATRE project has been funded by DARE UK, most recently under the £6.2m TREvolution Transformational Programme, in support of a multidisciplinary team from UCL, The Alan Turing Institute, Research Data Scotland, Ulster University, public contributors and led by the University of Dundee.

Find out more about the SATRE project at the DARE UK site.