Storm ID appointed to deliver Azure Trusted Research Environment for West of Scotland Innovation Hub

Empowering research with trusted, cloud-based infrastructure

The West of Scotland Innovation Hub, in partnership with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, has recognised the need for a modern, scalable solution to support both public and commercial research projects.

Up to now, the West of Scotland Safe Haven has been delivered using point-in-time implementations both on on-premise infrastructure and in the cloud, which, while secure, has presented technical and scalability limitations and required many manual processes.

With research needs evolving and the increasing sophistication of tools used by researchers, there has been a clear need for a cloud-hosted TRE that can offer greater flexibility, accessibility and security.

Why Azure TRE?

The Azure TRE platform is designed as an accelerator for organisations seeking to establish secure, self-service research environments in the cloud. Built on open source components, Azure TRE enables authorised users to deploy and configure workspaces quickly, without relying on IT teams for every change. It offers a suite of features including:

• Self-service workspace creation and administration for both administrators and researchers

• Integration with Microsoft Entra for robust multi-factor authentication

• Airlock workflow for secure data ingestion and export

• Cost reporting for transparent resource usage

• Ready-to-go and customisable workspace templates supporting a range of research tools

• Extensible architecture, allowing the service to evolve as research needs change

What will Storm ID deliver?

The collaboration is already underway, with Storm ID working closely with a joint West of Scotland Innovation Hub and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde team to confirm technical, security and governance requirements.

The Azure TRE is being deployed within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's Azure tenancy and tailored to support the West of Scotland Safe Haven needs, with demonstration workspaces in place to validate the platform's capabilities. User onboarding, role setup and training will enable West of Scotland Innovation Hub staff to manage the environment independently.

Storm ID is providing ongoing technical support and a managed service, alongside technical and governance documentation to support compliance and future scalability.

A platform built for triple helix working

For Storm ID, the real strength of this partnership lies in what it brings together in one place. We are linking the Safe Haven's trusted, governed data assets with multi-modal, population-level datasets and flexible GPU compute for machine learning, all within a single secure NHS environment. Researchers will be able to flex compute up or down to match the task at hand, whether that's a short burst of intensive model training or a sustained, long-term workload, without ever compromising the security and governance the Safe Haven is built on. In our view, this is what creates fertile ground for true triple helix working, bringing academia, industry and the NHS together within one trusted environment to take research from early discovery through to real-world impact.

Partnership with Microsoft

Building on Microsoft's platform brings further advantages to the project. Azure's flexible GPU provisioning means the TRE can scale compute to demand, giving researchers access to high-performance resources exactly when they need them, backed by a transparent costing model that gives the West of Scotland Innovation Hub clear visibility and control over spend. This is reinforced by Microsoft's position as the NHS's national technology advisor, giving the partnership an added layer of confidence that the platform is built on foundations that are trusted, future-proofed and aligned with the wider direction of NHS digital strategy.

Driving research innovation in Scotland

This project will enable the West of Scotland Safe Haven to support a wider range of research projects, making it easier for approved researchers to access de-identified data securely, fostering innovation and improving public health outcomes. Importantly, it will also lay the groundwork for supporting commercial researchers, imaging and genomics projects, expanding the scope and impact of the Safe Haven's work.

A collaborative future

Storm ID is proud to be partnering with the West of Scotland Innovation Hub on this project. By harnessing the power and flexibility of Azure TRE, we are helping to build a foundation for secure, efficient and impactful health research benefitting both the NHS and the communities it serves.