Second, they remove the technical burden of building and maintaining your own secure infrastructure. Establishing an environment that meets NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit standards, ISO 27001 certification, and information governance requirements is a substantial undertaking – one that diverts time and funding away from the research itself.

Third, and critically for data-intensive cancer research, TREs can offer high-performance computing, specialist software, and collaborative workspaces. Whether you are running deep-learning models on whole-slide histopathology images, performing multi-omic integration, or applying spatial transcriptomics analysis tools, a well-provisioned TRE provides the computational resources you need in a setting where your analysis can be reproduced and audited.

Finally, TREs foster collaboration. Multiple research teams can work with the same curated datasets in a shared environment, reducing duplication and enabling the kind of cross-disciplinary work that accelerates discovery.

What is CRUK’s Trusted Research Programme doing in this space?

Cancer Research UK’s Trusted Research Programme is a core component of CRUK’s broader Research Data Strategy, designed to maximise the safe and effective collection and reuse of cancer-related data. At its heart is a TRE that already supports a diverse portfolio of research projects led by teams at universities across the UK, drawing on data originating from multiple regions of Wales, England, and Scotland – securely integrated into our trusted research environment.

The environment handles the heterogeneous data types that characterise contemporary cancer research: whole-slide image data (including .ndpi, .dicom, and .qptiff formats), omics data, pre-clinical data, clinical trial data, and population registry data. It is compatible with analytical and imaging tools widely used by the community, including QuPath, PhenoChart, MapLap, and Python-based pipelines. Research projects within the TRE span a range of cancer types — from mesothelioma to people treated for cancers as children or young adults in the UK — with an overarching focus on treatment and prevention.

What can the Trusted Research Programme provide to you?

Beyond the TRE itself, CRUK’s Trusted Research Programme offers a broader suite of services. These include technical advice and consultancy on NHS and other data access processes, health research authority compliance, and accredited information governance training. If you are considering a CRUK grant application for data-driven research, the team can help shape proposals, scope TRE requirements, and evaluate costs.

Our work sits within a broader national landscape, including organisations such as DARE UK (Data and Analytics Research Environments UK) and the Safe Data Access Professionals network, developing shared expertise and standards across the sector. Together, we are making it possible for cancer researchers to work with sensitive data at the scale and pace the field demands – securely, efficiently, and with the confidence of patients and the public.

The principle is simple: bring the researchers to the data, not the data to the researchers. The future of cancer data research is already being built inside TREs.