About us

We are a truly mixed team of software developers, clinicians and traditional academic researchers all pooling skills and knowledge. We are unusual: we produce academic research papers, but we also use the same skills to build build live, interactive, data-driven tools and services; as well as real, practical policy insights on how data can be used to improve lives.

Our work is extremely high impact: our OpenPrescribing.net tool sees over 130,000 unique users a year; our TrialsTracker tools have received extensive global media coverage and help set the policy agenda; our OpenSAFELY.org platform is operating across 40% of England’s full pseudonymised patient records to generate key insights for clinicians and policymakers during COVID-19.

Our research covers a range of topics including: innovative informatics methods; variation in clinical care; behaviour change; research integrity; policy analysis; and more. We also aim to embody new ways of working: we share all our code as open source, and work openly and collaboratively by design, combining best practice from the software development and academic community. We also aim to be positive about the blockers: where we encounter technical, regulatory and cultural barriers to the better use of data, we write them up, and offer workable, practical solutions.