2 December 2025
The Spotlight Series shines a light on the outstanding work of UK Health Data Research Alliance members who are driving progress in health data research. Through these stories, we showcase how members are advancing innovation, building trust, and delivering real-world impact for patients and the public. Each feature highlights achievements, milestones, and best practices that contribute to our shared mission: accelerating improvements in health and care through the trustworthy and responsible use of health data.
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Our first blog explored why the pharmaceutical industry needs NHS data to develop new medicines. In this second feature, we shine the spotlight on Our Future Health (OFH) – the UK’s largest health research programme and the most viewed collection on the Health Data Research Gateway – to celebrate its remarkable milestones and its role in promoting transparency and FAIR data principles.
The OFH collection is the most viewed entity on the HDR Gateway of all time, with over 800 views since launch. Recently, OFH announced an exciting milestone: 52 active studies using OFH cohort data. This demonstrates the growing impact of OFH in advancing prevention, early detection, and treatment of diseases.
To learn more, we spoke with Dr Raghib Ali, Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officer of Our Future Health, about what these achievements mean for the programme, the role of the HDR Gateway, and what’s next.
Dr Ali: “Actually, we now have 52 active studies, which is even better! We’re really pleased with this, especially as we only started accepting research applications in the last two years. These active studies include research into the distribution of diseases in the UK, early detection of diseases and estimation of future disease risk. For example, one study is looking into ethnic health inequalities and how these link to the risk of conditions like diabetes and heart disease. Another study aims to use genetic insights and lifestyle factors to better predict people’s risk of cardiovascular diseases (like high blood pressure and stroke).”
This rapid growth reflects OFH’s ambition to enable discoveries at an unprecedented scale, powered by data from over 2.5 million consented volunteers.
Dr Ali: “Many of our volunteers have generously donated their health information because of their experiences of diseases like cancer, dementia and heart disease in their family. Something that our volunteers consistently tell us is that they want to hear more about how Our Future Health is helping to tackle these diseases. We recently surveyed our volunteers about the content of our newsletters, and 81% of them shared that they want to know more about how health researchers are using Our Future Health data.
In a recent newsletter, we shared the number of studies actively using Our Future Health data and were really pleased with the level of engagement we saw with this from our volunteers. It’s great to be able to show people how their data is already helping to make new discoveries about diseases, and to know that they are actively interested in this information.”
Dr Ali: “Our Future Health only works if we have the trust of our volunteers and the public, so we put them at the forefront of everything we do. One of our commitments is transparency, and the HDR Gateway has had a huge impact on increasing the transparency of the studies which are already using our volunteers’ data.
The Gateway provides a centralised, public source of the studies we approve, which makes it incredibly convenient for both our organisation and our volunteers to view the research they have contributed to in an accessible way. We want volunteers to not only feel empowered to know what research is being conducted with their data, but also to be able to access the results of these studies easily. We also encourage any researchers who are interested in studying our data to take a look at the HDR Gateway, to see the breadth of studies already taking place.”
The Gateway also supports OFH’s commitment to FAIR principles – making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable – through features like lay summaries and public benefit statements that make complex research accessible to all.
Dr Ali: “At the moment, many of our approved studies are still in progress and haven’t yet yielded results. However, going forward we plan to utilise the Gateway to publish any research results based on our data, with plain language summaries for the public. We’re looking forward to when we will be able to regularly share new health discoveries using Our Future Health data, and the HDR Gateway will help us to do this.
For more information about Our Future Health, please visit our website. If you’d like to learn more about studying our data for your research, visit our researcher website.”
Our Future Health’s success story highlights the power of collaboration and transparency in health data research. By leveraging the HDR Gateway, OFH is not only accelerating research but also building trust with volunteers and the public.
We encourage other UK Health Data Research Alliance members to onboard resources to the Gateway, enhancing discoverability and accessibility for researchers nationwide. Together, we can ensure health data is used responsibly to deliver tangible benefits for patients across the UK.
