Organisational Readiness and Perceptions of Synthetic Data Production and Dissemination in the UK: Qualitative Data, 2024

This collection comprises of interview and focus group data gathered in 2024-2025 as part of a project aimed at investigating how synthetic data can support secure data access and improve research workflows, particularly from the perspective of data-owning organisations.

The interviews included 4 case studies of UK-based organisations who had piloted work generating and disseminating synthetic datasets, including the Ministry of Justice, NHS England, the project team working in partnership with the Department for Education, and Office for National Statistics. It also includes 2 focus groups with Trusted Repository Environment (TRE) representatives who had published or were considering publishing synthetic data.

The motivation for this collection stemmed from the growing interest in synthetic data as a tool to enhance access to sensitive data and reduce pressure on Trusted Research Environments (TREs). The study explored organisational engagement with two types of synthetic data: synthetic data generated from real data, and “data-free” synthetic data created using metadata only.

The aims of the case studies and focus groups were to assess current practices, explore motivations and barriers to adoption, understand cost and governance models, and gather perspectives on scaling and outsourcing synthetic data production. Conditional logic was used to tailor the survey to organisations actively producing, planning, or not engaging with synthetic data.

The interviews covered 5 key themes: organisational background; Infrastructure, operational costs, and resourcing; challenges of sharing synthetic data; benefits and use cases of synthetic data; and organisational policy and procedures.

The data offers exploratory insights into how UK organisations are approaching synthetic data in practice and can inform future research, infrastructure development, and policy guidance in this evolving area.

The findings have informed recommendations to support the responsible and efficient scaling of synthetic data production across sectors.