Overview
Our client is a leading research institution seeking to give researchers timely, secure access to sensitive research data and analytics tools, while maintaining strict controls, collaboration, and audit trails.
INDUSTRY
Education
SERVICES/PLATFORMS
Research Gateway
Our client needed a way for researchers to access approved data, collaborate, analyze results, and share findings, all within proper controls and audit trails, without building a large-scale secure environment from scratch. To address this, Relevance Lab implemented a Secure Research Environment (SRE) using Research Gateway, built on the Five Safes framework(safe people, projects, settings, data, and outputs) that underpins the UKNHS's Trusted Research Environment model.
Friction Points
- Complex, Large-Scale Deployments: Building a secure research environment from scratch was a large-scale, complex undertaking for the institution.
- Controlled Data Access: Researchers needed secure, audited access to sensitive research data without compromising security or compliance.
- Undefined Ingress/Egress Workflows: The institution needed standardized workflows to bring researcher data in and export results out, with full audit trails.
- Emerging Multi-Party Data Sharing Needs: A growing need for multiple data producers and consumers to interact securely in a research marketplace model lacked an established solution.
Solution
- Secure Research Environment via Research Gateway: Implemented an SRE built on the Five Safes framework, using Research Gateway as the secure data and orchestration platform.
- Data Management & Study Preparation: Enabled data ingestion, processing, cataloging, and study-specific data preparation and access assignment within a secure data enclave.
- Controlled Research Workspaces: Gave researchers secure, pre-mounted access to study data through tools like JupyterLab, RStudio, and VS Code for interactive and batch processing, with no direct ingress/egress capability from the workspace.
- Governed Egress Approvals: Built a request, review, and approval workflow for exporting research results, with full compliance and audit trails.
- Secure Research Marketplace Model: Extended the solution on AWS to support a consortium model, enabling multiple data producers and consumers to interact through a SaaS-based marketplace with cost tracking and billing.
Impact
- Faster Research Collaboration: Enabled the institution to speed up research across multiple stakeholders by leveraging the cloud.
- Faster, Lower-Risk Implementation: Accelerated deployment of a large-scale, complex SRE solution in a fast, secure, and cost-effective manner.
- End-to-End Audit Trails: Maintained compliance and audit trails across data ingress, research workflows, and egress approvals.
- Scalable Multi-Party Model: Established a foundation for a consortium-based Secure Research Marketplace supporting multiple data producers and consumers.