National Cancer Registry Ireland & Aridhia Announce Partnership to Deliver a Secure Data Environment

We’re delighted to announce a new partnership with the National Cancer Registry Ireland (NCRI) to implement a Secure Data Environment (SDE). A major step forward, it will enable safe, governed access to cancer data for researchers, students, partners and collaborators across Ireland and beyond.

Solving Research’s Biggest Challenges

Cancer registries generate rich, longitudinal data that is uniquely valuable to researchers. However, that value comes hand-in-hand with responsibility. Cancer data often includes highly sensitive clinical records, personal health information, and increasingly, genomic information. It’s among the most sensitive data held by any public institution.

Supporting research to improve treatments, patient outcomes and advances our understanding of cancer is critically important, but so is maintaining the highest standards of privacy and security for those that contribute their data. It’s a challenge that modern data-sharing platforms and approaches still struggle to meet.

NCRI recognised that a new model was needed: one that could open its data to a broader community of authorised users without ever allowing that data to be copied, downloaded, or transferred outside a controlled boundary.

The NCRI SDE will be built on the Aridhia Digital Research Environment (DRE), a fully certified, cloud-based platform trusted by world-leading research hospitals, research institutions and life sciences organisations across more than 80 countries.

“This secure environment will enable authorised researchers to analyse sensitive cancer data in a fully controlled and auditable way, without compromising privacy. It will strengthen data protection, streamline access, and support more impactful research while aligning with key national and European health data strategies.”

– Theresa Redaniel, Head of Research and Analysis at NCRI

The SDE will provide authorised researchers, students, and collaborators with access to anonymised and pseudonymised clinical and genomic cancer data within a controlled, auditable, and secure environment. Crucially, users will be able to analyse this data with advanced analysis tools and pipelines, without ever leaving the bounds of the SDE.

Why It Matters

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of mortality in Ireland. Improving outcomes depends not just on clinical advances, but on the ability of the research community to study population-level patterns, evaluate treatment effectiveness, and identify inequalities in care. The NCRI SDE will make that research faster, safer, and more collaborative, reducing longstanding barriers that have previously limited who could access cancer data and under what conditions.

By bringing the Aridhia DRE to NCRI, this partnership also positions Ireland's cancer registry infrastructure to meet the evolving requirements of the European Health Data Space (EHDS), which will place new obligations on health data holders across EU member states from 2029.

"NCRI has spent over three decades building one of the most comprehensive cancer datasets in Europe. With the Aridhia DRE, data can be put to work safely, securely, and at scale for the researchers, clinicians and policymakers who need it. As the European Health Data Space comes into force, partnerships like this show how national registries can get ahead of the curve and become trusted, research-ready data holders."

– David Sibbald, CEO at Aridhia

Looking Ahead

This partnership marks the beginning of a longer journey. As the NCRI SDE matures, it holds the potential to expand the range of cancer data available, deepen linkage with other national health datasets, and support international collaborative research. And all the while, it’ll continue to keep data governance and patient privacy at the centre.

We look forward to working alongside the NCRI team to make this vision a reality.

Who are the National Cancer Registry Ireland?

Now over three decades in operation, NCRI holds one of Ireland's most significant health datasets spanning incidence, survival, treatment and mortality data for every cancer diagnosed in the country. NCRI plays a central role in shaping cancer policy, supporting clinical research, and informing public health strategy.

Discover more about NCRI at www.ncri.ie.