NHS and research organisations in London are invited to submit joint applications for funding for new ‘Driver Projects’ aimed at using data at scale to deliver improvements in health outcomes for Londoners (19 June 2025).

OneLondon is co-funding three new ‘Driver Projects’ up to £250,000 each that will help to showcase the potential of the new London Secure Data Environment (SDE) and inform its ongoing development, while delivering health improvement benefits for Londoners.

The London SDE will be a world leading resource for health and care improvement. With London-wide linked data it will provide one of the largest data assets in the world and offer unparalleled opportunities for improving patient care – whether in relation to direct care, planning or research.

The new ‘Driver Projects’ will demonstrate how bringing together the London SDE with wider data assets and innovations from across the Capital can deliver significant value and benefits for Londoners in terms of health and care improvement. The projects will also help inform the ongoing work to develop the London SDE’s data assets, analytical tools and working arrangements with partner organisations.

Applications are invited from collaborative projects between NHS and NIHR-funded organisations spanning more than one ICB area. Successful projects will need to:

• Tackle a high-priority real-world challenge in London’s health and care system and deliver actionable insights and tangible improvements.
• Demonstrate clinical leadership support from participant ICBs and relevant provider partners.
• Collaborate between NHS and NIHR organisations along with partnership and co-funding with charities, institutes and/or industry.
• Augment the London SDE assets with additional data, analytical tools and partnership opportunities.  
• Ensure they have strong plans for public engagement.

Mark Kewley, London Secure Data Environment Programme Director, said:

“The NHS in London, together with London Councils and the GLA, are working to make London the healthiest global city, and the best place to receive health and care services. Delivering this commitment will require new ways of working.

“As OneLondon we are building the data foundations to make London the best place to innovate to improve health outcomes for Londoners, and drive economic growth for the region. To support a thriving innovation ecosystem in London we have to coordinate our research, evaluation, and implementation expertise to generate insights – and then turn those insights into clinical-operational impact for patients and staff on-the-ground. Our London SDE, which includes a joint data controller environment for GPs in London, offers an internationally distinctive resource to make that happen.”

Professor Rebecca Shipley OBE FREng, London Secure Data Environment Research Lead, said:

“We are so excited to be launching a call for Driver Project proposals, to showcase and strengthen the capabilities of the London SDE. We are looking for Research & Development projects that bring together teams across London’s NHS, NIHR, university and industry partners to tackle high impact real-world problems, and which can plot a clear and credible route to impact. That could mean developing new tools, such as a clinical dashboard, or developing new analytic insights that can be presented back to patients and staff through other OneLondon tools, such as the London Care Record, or Universal Care Plan.”

Joint proposals from NHS and NIHR organisations are invited for ‘Driver Projects’ that will  help to showcase and enhance the London SDE.

Three projects will be co-funded with up to £250,000 for each of the successful bids. Successful applicants will have flexibility in the use of that resource to deliver the project, noting that we expect it to be spent on activities such as:

• Data engineering resource for data pipeline development
• Data curation and clinical validation
• Analyst resources to undertake health systems research and data science tasks
• Compute resources
• Patient and public engagement activities
• Implementation support, blueprinting, and scale-up plan
• Dissemination activities

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Thursday 31 July 2025.

More details about the ‘London Secure Data Environment Driver Project Awards Call for Submissions’ are available here.

The application form for submissions is available to download here.

Further detailed information is available here including information about the different datasets and services that will be available to the successful Driver Projects as well as more detailed information about the application process. You can also watch this webinar to find out more information.

You can read more about the London SDE here.