Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science Pioneering the better use of data, evidence and digital tools in healthcare and policy

We are the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford.

We take huge datasets and turn them into traditional academic research papers; but we also build live, interactive data-driven tools and services for everyone to use.

We are a mixed team of software developers, clinicians and academics; we pool skills, knowledge, and best practice from each of these three disciplines.

We use modern, open methods, sharing all analysis and platform code online to support reproducibility, trust, and efficient re-use.

When we encounter technical, regulatory, or organisational blockers to the better use of data, we don’t give up: we share practical policy insights, to help keep things moving for everyone.

Latest from the blog

  1. What Are Codelists and How Are They Constructed?

    In this blog we explain what codelists are, how they are constructed and review existing literature on construction processes.

  2. Why ehrQL?

    Why did we create a new query language?

  3. OpenSAFELY Wins CogX Award for Open Science Innovation

    The OpenSAFELY Collaborative has won a prestigious CogX Award for the Best Innovation in Open Source Technology

  4. NHS England Medicines Optimisation Opportunities - A new dashboard on OpenPrescribing

    In this blog we describe how to use and access the NHS England Medicines Optimisation Oppurtunitites dashboard on OpenPrescribing

  5. OpenSAFELY Service Restoration Observatory: Key Measures

    In this blog, we describe the development of a set of key measures used to monitor the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on primary care as part of the OpenSAFELY Service Restoration Observatory (SRO). The results from this work have now been published in eLife.

  6. Introduction to the Information Governance Team

    Here we introduce the Bennett Institute’s Information Governance team, explaining who they are, and what they do.

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More than ever before, we now have access to vast amounts of data. We have a responsibility to use, analyse, develop and apply this data in an ethical way to promote change for good — with an emphasis on targeting the right kind of growth and achieving levelling up in society.

Peter Bennett

The founding of the Bennett Institute will allow for more collaboration and flexibility, to respond quickly to global health emergencies and policy challenges alike. It's particularly exciting to continue our work on data outside of medicine, across the broader policy space.

Ben Goldacre

The experience of the pandemic has demonstrated the centrality of both data and evidence, not only in shaping sound government policies, but also in improving public health outcomes. Ben Goldacre and his team have shown just how important universities have been in contributing to the nation's health and well-being.

Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor

The multidisciplinary DataLab team led by Ben Goldacre, have pioneered the use of routine data in novel and impactful ways on clinical care and policy, attracting this most generous donation from Peter Bennett. Their OpenPrescribing platform is used by very large numbers of clinical practitioners and NHS providers to improve prescribing practice. Very rapidly during the pandemic, the team delivered the world’s largest routine clinical dataset OpenSAFELY that helps answer key answers to how we better protect the public from the impacts of COVID-19.

Professor Richard Hobbs