The City Region Deal joint committee have officially approved £49.2 million towards the new Usher Institute building.

The business case for the Usher Institute’s Data-Driven Innovation Hub has been accepted by the City Region Deal Joint Committee. Approval of the Usher Institute business case will enable construction of the Usher Institute at a cost of £68 million. The case seeks City Region Deal investment of £49.2 million with the balance being funded by the University of Edinburgh.

“Through the Usher Institute, over the lifetime of the programme, we will engage and train over 20,000 students and health and social care professionals in the application of data. We will undertake health and social care research projects worth £138m. We will engage with 280 public, private and third sector organisations, we will develop a comprehensive health and social care data resource that will curate and make accessible around 270 new health and social care data assets. We will establish 49 new DDI health and social care companies in the Edinburgh and south east Scotland region.” – Colan Mehaffey, Chief Operating Officer of the Data-Driven Innovation Programme at the Usher Institute.

Professor Nick Mills showed committee members evidence that data has made improvements in heart disease treatments – with premature deaths halving in the last 20 years largely through “data-driven policy initiatives”.

“We don’t communicate as effectively across primary care, local authorities and hospital care and therefore delayed discharge in hospitals continue to be increasing. I think data maybe a way to really tackle this. – Professor Nick Mills, Senior Responsible Officer, Data-Driven Innovation Programme at the Usher Institute.

The new Usher Institute building, to be based at Edinburgh BioQuarter, is being designed by architects Hassell Studio. It will provide a base for members of the Usher Institute including the Edinburgh Clinical Trials Unit, as well as partners and start-up companies working in the field of data-driven innovation in health and social care.  It is due to open in 2023.

Professor Aziz Sheikh, Director of the Usher Institute, commented on the wider vision for the Data-Driven Innovation Programme within the Usher Institute. “Our vision is to create a world-leading innovation hub where public, private and third sectors collaborate to enable data-driven advances in the delivery of health and social care. Through these collaborations, the Usher Institute will support a data-driven approach to the prevention, diagnosis and management of conditions, help improve health and social care provision in the city region and enable the development of a world-leading learning system for health and social care that can potentially be scaled across Scotland and the UK.”