What is NITRE?
The Northern Ireland Trusted Research Environment (NITRE) focuses on the development of data and connectivity infrastructure to enable collaborative data research and evaluation to improve insights into health and social care across Northern Ireland.
Safe and Secure Data Use: Protecting Health and Social Care (HSC) data is a top priority. NITRE ensures that all data access is governed by a transparent approval process, aligned with best practices and national standards. This safeguards patient information while enabling meaningful research.
A Vision for Better Data: NITRE aims to deliver a fully integrated, longitudinal dataset combining primary and secondary care information. This data is made accessible through a Safe Data Environment, supporting secondary use for research and evaluation that benefits patients and services.
Building Trust Through Transparency: Trust is central to NITRE’s mission. By promoting safe and transparent data use, NITRE upholds the interests of both the HSC and its patients, ensuring that all research delivers clear and evidenced patient benefits.
Driving Innovation Through Collaboration: NITRE supports data innovation driven by HSC needs, providing assurance to data controllers and fostering partnerships that bring clear benefits to health and social care.
Who oversees NITRE?
NITRE is part of the HSC Data Institute. Dr Frances Burns is the NITRE Lead. NITRE is overseen by the NITRE Strategic Board, which is made up of 24 Members from across the HSC, Department of Health, academia, primary care, and the Information Commissioner’s Office.
What are the current NITRE projects?
- Business Modelling (costing and contracting)
- Cohort Discovery
- Consented Data Release Service
- GPIP to NITRE (primary care data utility for research and evaluation)
- Health and Social Care (Control of Data Processing) Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 (legislation amendment, regulations development)
- Information Governance (Honest Broker Service, NITRE, and the Data Institute)
- NITRE System (Honest Broker Service, warehousing, Northern Ireland Health Analytics Platform (NIHAP))
- Northern Ireland Public Data Panel (NIPDP)
- QUB and NITRE Working Group (archiving solutions)
- Regional Opt-out (use of identifiable data for research and evaluation)
Useful links
How do I contact NITRE?
Page last updated: 21 August 2026