One research project funded by Digital Nottingham was the “Trusted Research Environment for Cities” project, or TRE4C, newly renamed as the City Data Connector. This ambitious project acted as a feasibility study looking at how large amounts of data from a wide range of sources might be pooled, analysed collectively, and potentially used for the greater good of citizens.

The concept of a ”Trusted Research Environment (TRE)” is not, in itself, new. Put simply, a TRE is a protected, secure and safe place for data that may only be accessed by a trusted few. However, this project aimed to take the concept to a whole new level, one which would enable research and open data to be analysed and used in a way that benefits the general public of Nottingham in their day-to-day lives. In short, it aims to “bring data closer to the people”.

“Data” is an umbrella term that could refer to any large collection of information, be it statistics, empirical evidence, qualitative or quantitative data, etc. It could be information about formal qualifications among a population, trends concerning levels of sickness and wider healthcare issues, information about businesses, survey results, to name but a few examples.

Consider the scale of data collection and storage in our world today; there are millions of agencies and organisations, all collecting data on millions of topics and trends. And naturally, given the varying nature and aims of those collecting data, the resulting data is stored in a myriad of formats, and used in a potentially infinite number of ways.

Esmond Unwin and Philip Quinlan are the Principal Investigators for the TRE4C project. Esmond Unwin said: “Against this backdrop, the TRE4C project was created to try to understand how these disparate datasets could be brought together in some form, wherein they could be analysed and cross referenced and the findings be used to benefit everyone within a community.”

With the world becoming ever more digital and the digital divide becoming greater, TRE4C aims to benefit the general public of Nottingham by:

• Highlighting opportunities for training, education and career development.
• Bringing citizens closer to local government, social services and healthcare.
• Developing business expertise and skills.
• Lessening the digital divide within communities.

The project sought to investigate the possibility of building a robust, inclusive and trustworthy system that can support these aims. Experts from Engineering, Geography, Epidemiology, Health Informatics, Digital Research, Computer Science, Life Sciences and The Business School helped develop the pilot.

To explore the potential linkage between different types of data, metadata and datasets for different contexts and domains, an organisation called Metadata Works was employed to help create and develop a web portal for the TRE. This prototype site enabled the user to run a search of a metadata catalogue in the areas of health, the environment and business. For example, if one ran a query for ‘environment’, it would return all the datasets that relate to that topic. Likewise, a user could enter a keyword term of their choosing, and matching results would be returned and listed.

It goes without saying that security was of paramount importance throughout this project. All data stored adhered to the strictest security, to alleviate any concerns around privacy.

In addition to the website, one of the core components of TRE4C is metadata. Metadata Works also developed a tool for collating, organising, structuring and publishing datasets and associated metadata, and populated this catalogue with eighteen separate datasets, contributed by other the members of the project team.

These datasets cover topics as varied as the environment, transportation and health. Some examples of datasets were:​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

• A multi-agency study of water quality in rivers, lakes and ponds, led by Imperial College London.
• A Government-led study focusing on energy efficiency in buildings, which looked at energy use, carbon dioxide emissions, fuel costs, and more.
• A pandemic-themed healthcare study in the Nottingham area, looking at how and why some healthcare practitioners experience more severe symptoms of Covid-19 that others.

Information was associated with each dataset, including start and end dates for the study, details of geography and location, rules pertaining to access and governance of the data, and the format of data – for example whether variables were an integer, or a real number or variable character. This was deemed important to add context to the data itself.

To assess the impact and potential future value of the project, a series of online focus groups were held with members of the public in and around Nottingham in July 2022. A total of 32 people took part in these groups, designed to gauge their understanding of the project, and gain insight into what value they feel it might have. The key findings of the focus groups were:​​​​​​​

• The idea of having a detailed statistical information source about the places people live is a good one, and the potential societal and community improvements resonated with Nottingham residents.
• More work was needed to convince people the website would be something they would personally use often, as the sheer scale and size of the data within could be intimidating.
• Younger citizens who are far more immersed in the digital world of data and information would be easier to engage, so more work would be needed to convey the value of a TRE4C resource to older people.

Since the end of the first phase of the TRE4C project, a number of recommendations have been made on what the next steps should be. The findings suggest any further work in this field should aim to improve the geolocation of data (making it clearer where data pertains to a physical area or location); increase the number of datasets, with a wider breadth of subject matter; identify improved ways of representing data visually, as opposed to endless lists of numbers and figures; ensure training and promotion is considered, as without this, a TRE4C site is unlikely to gain traction outside of certain professions and academia.

Digital Nottingham will continue to support and be involved in the next steps for the TRE4C project, whose aims and aspirations are closely aligned with its own.”