OHDSI UK 2025: Bringing the Open Science Community Together
Arya C Soman, DibyaSwarupa Mohanty, Jeremiah Akintomide, David Akwuru
The 3rd Annual [OHDSI UK 2025](https://ukhealthdata.org/events/ohdsi-uk-2025/) Meeting, held on 26 September 2025 at the Welcome Building in London, was a gathering of the open science OHDSI UK community featuring lighting talks, poster session and software demonstrations showcasing projects and initiatives leveraging the OMOP common data model. Over 200 participants from 10 countries, including researchers, clinicians, data scientists, health informaticians, industry partners, and early-career researchers, discussed their work advancing real-world evidence building on the OMOP Common Data Model (CDM).
Participation in this event proved extremely insightful, significantly enhancing our understanding of federated health data infrastructures, open science practices, and the generation of real-world evidence. We are sincerely grateful to the Higher Education Authority (HEA) for the funding support that enabled our attendance, providing a valuable opportunity for skills development, international knowledge exchange, and engagement with best practices in the use of trusted, standardized health data to support reproducible and policy-relevant research.
## Setting the Stage: Collaboration at Its Core
The meeting opened with a welcome address from [Dr. Rhoswyn Walker](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhoswyn-walker/?originalSubdomain=uk), Director of Strategy at Health Data Research UK. This was followed by strategic updates from Professor [Dani Prieto-Alhambra](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dani-prieto-alhambra-65489243/?originalSubdomain=uk) (NDORMS-University of Oxford) & [Dr. Alex Knight](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexeknight/?originalSubdomain=uk) (HDR UK) of current and emerging OMOP-based research activity across the UK and Europe. These opening sessions provided important context on the growth of OHDSI federated research infrastructures and highlighted the increasing role of the OMOP common data models in supporting large-scale, privacy-preserving observational studies.
The scale of engagement at this year’s meeting reflected the growing maturity of the OHDSI community, with nearly 50 abstracts submitted, 40 posters presented, and 10 lightning talks delivered. The breadth of topics covered demonstrated the versatility of the OMOP CDM across clinical domains and healthcare systems.[OHDSI UK 2025: Strategic updates slide](https://ukhealthdata.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/b.-Knight_Prieto-Alhambra.pdf)
eHealth Hub for Cancer: Oral and Poster Contributions
eHealth Hub for Cancer members made noteworthy contributions to the scientific programme with both oral and poster presentations, showcasing ongoing work supported by HEA-funded initiatives. These contributions highlighted the eHealth Hub’s active role in developing interoperable, federated frameworks for cancer research and its integration within the wider international OHDSI community.
During the lightning talk session, eHealth-Hub first-year PhD student [DibyaSwarupa Mohanty](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dibyaswarupa-mohanty/?originalSubdomain=ie) delivered an oral presentation on work she is undertaking with fellow first-year PhD student [David Akwuru](https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-akwuru/?originalSubdomain=uk), [Professor Ruth Clifford (UHL)](https://www.ul.ie/limerick-dcrc/professor-ruth-clifford), [Professor Nina Orfali (St James)](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-orfali-mb-mrcpi-frcpath-phd-9a782668/), [Professor Katie Crowley (UL)](https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiecrowley/?originalSubdomain=ie) and Blood Cancer Network Ireland, entitled “**Building a Federated, FAIR-Compliant Clinico-Genomic Data Framework for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) in Ireland.**” This presentation outlined methodological approaches that the eHealth-Hub team used to harmonize and share complex clinico-genomic AML cancer data in a federated setting. This generated constructive discussion with researchers working on addressing the challenges of harmonization of genomics data with clinical data.
In the poster session, eHealth-Hub PhD students presentations included data standardization strategies, OMOP implementation challenges, and analytical workflows for cancer research. The poster sessions provided valuable opportunities for in-depth technical discussions and peer feedback, strengthening connections with both academic and clinical stakeholders.
***eHealth-Hub for Cancer Team Members from UL and QUB; (L to R) [Arya C Soman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arya-c-soman-2893631ba/),[ DibyaSwarupa Mohanty](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dibyaswarupa-mohanty/?originalSubdomain=ie), [Amanda Kowalczyk](https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/amanda-kowalczyk/), [Aedin Culhane](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aedinculhane/?originalSubdomain=ie), [David Akwuru](https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-akwuru/?originalSubdomain=uk), [Marina Ainciburu](https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-ainciburu-fern%C3%A1ndez-803673161/?originalSubdomain=ie), [Jeremiah Akintomide](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremiah-akintomide-967504191/?originalSubdomain=ng)***
** * eHealth-Hub PhD students presenting their research***
## Lightning Talks: Big Ideas, Small Windows
The morning lightning talks was chaired by [Professor Geoff Hall](https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-hall-175aa2a3/?originalSubdomain=uk) (Professor of Digital Health, Leeds University, CCIO Leeds Teaching Hospitals, Clinical Lead DATA-CAN UK) and [Dr Ofran Al-Mossawi ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ofran-almossawi-7870573a/?originalSubdomain=uk)(Great Ormond Street Hospital). Topics ranged from antibiotic stewardship in NHS hospitals to large-scale, multi-site real-world data linkage, highlighting the flexibility of the OMOP framework for applied healthcare research.
The afternoon sessions built on in-depth talks and software demonstrations. Speakers, including OHDSI Titan [Dr Anna Ostropolets](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-ostropolets/) (Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, New York), who spoke about updates to the OHDSI vocabulary. [Gustav Klingstedt](https://ukhealthdata.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/e.-Klingstedt.pdf) (Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare (THL)) describes FinOMOP, a Finnish national initiative started in 2021 to create Finnish vocabulary mappings to enable the use of the OMOP CDM in Finland. One of the Finnish terms related to childbirth is “sauna”. After another session of excellent lightning talks. [Shaun Rowark](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaun-rowark-a592b1122/?originalSubdomain=uk) (NICE, UK) spoke about the potential value of real-world evidence and OMOP to inform and support HTA’s new medicines approvals in NICE.
Demonstrations of open-source tools such as PhenotypeR, OMOP Navigator, and Carrot Top illustrated how the OHDSI community is collectively building reusable, transparent tools that support scalable, reproducible research.
For the eHealth Hub for Cancer team, these sessions reinforced best practices in federated analytics, cohort construction, and phenotype definition, directly informing ongoing methodological development within Hub-supported research projects.
Slides and recordings from all talks, along with poster abstracts and links to relevant software GitHub repositories, are available on the event [OHDSI UK 2025 ](https://ukhealthdata.org/events/ohdsi-uk-2025/) website, providing an excellent resource for those new to the OHDSI community.
Capacity Building through Collaborative Engagement
Beyond the formal programme, some of the most valuable and impactful experiences came from informal networking and collaboration, particularly during the poster sessions and evening reception. These informal gatherings allowed for open discussions with researchers at various stages of OMOP implementation. People shared their experiences, exchanged ideas, and discussed the challenges of mapping and analyzing complex clinical data.
This engagement was especially meaningful for early-career researchers like us, facilitating integration into an established international research community and supporting the development of long-term collaborative partnerships. These interactions closely align the HEA’s goals of building sustainable research capacity and encouraging cross-institutional collaboration. The meeting strengthened our technical expertise in data standardization and federated analysis, broadened our awareness and understanding of global best practice, and reinforced the value of open, community-driven research infrastructure.
## Closing Reflections: A Community Moving Forward
Attending and presenting at OHDSI UK 2025 was more than an academic milestone; it was a reminder that collaboration is the heartbeat of science. We are deeply grateful to OHDSI UK for curating such an inspiring event and to the eHealth Hub and HEA for giving us this invaluable opportunity to learn, present, and connect with this incredible community.