The HDR-UK Wales-Northern Ireland Substantive Site is a partnership between Swansea University (SU) and Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), reflecting major complementary research strengths in both institutions in precision medicine, public health and informatics. The Northern Ireland component is led by Professor Mark Lawler, who is also the HDR-UK cancer data science strategy lead. Our philosophy is to promote interdisciplinary research in data science, bringing together diverse stakeholders to address significant health challenges.  We have brought together  researchers from three of QUB’s Global Research Institutes (GRIs), The Institute for Health Sciences (IHS), The Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) and the Institute for Global Food Security (IGFS). Over twenty-two group leaders from QUB are involved in HDR-UK Wales Northern Ireland (see list below).

QUB has invested significantly over the last five years to support health informatics and bioinformatics research within the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences (MHLS) as well as the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPS). HDR-UK@Queen’s is embedded within a dynamic interdisciplinary environment across multiple sites; co-located with the Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research (formerly CCRCB) Medical Bioinformatics Research Section (MBRS) in the Health Sciences Building and has dedicated space at the National Public Health Centre of Excellence Northern Ireland, while also engaging with ECIT and the Informatics Core Technology Unit. We are forging partnerships across multiple sectors (academia, industry, NHS, charities) to bring together people from a wide range of backgrounds, including computer science, life sciences, maths, medicine, public health and statistics. These inter-sectoral collaborations will ultimately deliver transformational research by connecting considerable public and private data resources, and by linking diverse expertise, in order to enhance healthcare outcomes.