INTEGRATE is led in collaboration with the University of Oxford, HDR UK, CRUK Data Community Support Unit and University of Dundee aiming to identify, pilot and evaluate initiatives that strengthen data science career pathways and drive better collaboration across UK biomedical science. To help achieve this aim, we are committed to making any resources and reports available as openly as possible to help empower the community to build a more equitable and collaborative future.
On this page, you will find a summary of all of the outputs associated with the INTEGRATE project. You can also check out our Zenodo Community and OSF project.
WP1: Mapping Best Practice
In order to find out which initiatives had been genuinely supportive in the career development of biomedical data scientists, we designed a survey which was distributed nationally across all regions of the UK. Our survey was targeted at any role who identified with the term 'biomedical data scientist' and gathered 72 responses covering a wide range of roles and career stages. For a more in depth summary, go here.
Associated Outputs:
- Survey preliminary findings (coming soon)
- Resource list of helpful initiatives (coming soon)
WP2: Interdisciplinary Peer Mentoring
Biomedical researchers are increasingly encouraged to work in interdisciplinary teams, however, this comes with challenges around unfamiliar terminology or working practices. Moreover, post-doctoral researchers may have limited opportunities to build networks with those outside of their own institution or discipline. In March 2026, we launched our Bytes and Bench Interdisciplinary Peer mentoring scheme to help address these points. The scheme was designed as a 6-month, fully online peer mentoring programme, supported by 3 interactive workshops, in which post-doctoral researchers were matched in groups of 3. In order to promote out aim of improving interdisciplinary skills and understanding, each group contained at least one primarily computational biologist, and at least one primarily bench-based biologist.
Associated outputs:
- Qualitative pre-registration: OSF pre-registration report
- Scheme materials (including workshop slides and evaluation materials): Available on OSF
- Overall evaluation report (expected late 2026/early2027)
WP4: Career Mobility
Exposure to other working environments and sectors has a number of potential benefits. Even for those who wish to stay in academia, cross sector interactions can promote knowledge exchange, network building, and awareness of different ways of working. However, these opportunities are not always available to everyone, and there are many potential factors which may limit the feasibility of these schemes. In this work package, we aimed to engage with stakeholders across Industry, academic institutions, as well as researchers themselves, to understand the appetite for these schemes, and which models would be most feasible.
Associated Outputs:
Coming soon
WP5: Evaluation of Collaboration and Career Development Activities
Through this work package, we aimed to investigate the ability of different types of activity, such as hackathons, mentoring and careers workshops to help promote interdisciplinary skills development. As part of this work package, we are working alongside a community of ECRs to develop an online careers workshop to help biomedical data scientists identify and develop the interdisciplinary skills which are needed to succeed across different career paths within the field.
Associated Outputs:
- Online careers workshop (October 2026, date TBC)