PERTH MASTERCLASS
Description
How can Australia accelerate data-driven health innovation while maintaining privacy, trust, and social licence?
Join a two-day Trusted Synthetic Health Data & Federated Analytics Masterclass that brings together national and international experts from Swansea University (UK), to explore practical, ethical, and scalable approaches to using synthetic health data and federated analytics across research, policy, digital health, and health system innovation.
Combining hands-on technical learning with deep discussion of governance, ethics, and public trust, this Masterclass supports Australia’s growing demand for timely, efficient, interoperable, and privacy preserving data capabilities supported by appropriate governance that meets legal, ethical, and social licence expectations.
These foundations are essential to unlock health data for research, health system planning, digital health innovation, education and cross-sector collaboration.
Benefits of attending
Build practical, cross-sector capability in synthetic health data, federated data ecosystems, common data models, and privacy preserving computation.
Understand the appropriate use of low and high-fidelity synthetic data across research health service analytics, policy, innovation, and workforce training.
Develop a shared understanding of ethics, governance, and social licence, including the distinct roles of consumers, data custodians, policymakers, and technical experts.
Explore how synthetic data enables safe data access, collaboration, and innovation within federated and Trusted Research Environment (TRE) models.
Learn from UK and Australian case studies to inform realistic, locally relevant implementation pathways.
Strengthen cross-sector dialogue and collaboration between researchers, clinicians, health consumers, data scientists, innovators and policymakers.
Who should attend
Researchers & Early Career Researchers: Prototype analyses, test pipelines, and gain hands-on experience using synthetic data and federated analytics before ethics and data access approvals are in place.
HDR Students: Get hands-on with realistic synthetic health datasets while learning the foundations of data synthesis, governance, and ethics – no prior experience with patient data required.
Health Services, Policy & Government: Explore practical pathways for enabling data-driven innovation while protecting privacy, public trust, and regulatory compliance.
Digital Health & Data Innovation Industry: Test models, products and AI safely using synthetic data environments without impacting live systems or sensitive health data.
Health Consumers & Patient Advocates: Understand what synthetic health data is (and isn’t), how privacy risks are minimised, and how communities can shape responsible, trusted data innovation.
Find out more about the Masterclass series here https://digitalhealthcrc.github.io/SD_masterclass
Places are limited and registrations will close on 29 May, 2026
Agenda
- All day
Day One - Foundations, ethics and readiness to use synthetic health data effectively
Session highlights: • Develop a clear, shared understanding of what synthetic health data is (and is not), and where it adds value. • Distinguish between low and high-fidelity synthetic data, including their risks, benefits, and appropriate use cases. • Understand the technical foundations of synthetic data generation, validation, and fitness-for-purpose assessment. • Examine ethical, governance, and regulatory considerations, with a strong focus on transparency, accountability, and public trust. • Learn about local Australian synthetic health data initiatives, progress to date, and lessons learned from early implementation. • Engage in cross-sector discussion to assess organisational readiness for adopting synthetic health data in practice.
- All day
Day Two - Applying synthetic data safely at scale - hands on, demonstrations and social licence pathways
Session highlights: • Understand how synthetic data supports federated analytics, Trusted Research Environments, and privacy preserving computation at scale. • Gain hands on technical experience or participate in expert-led demonstrations of synthetic data generation, fidelity evaluation, and applied modelling using a realistic health use case. • Explore how consumer expectations, policy considerations, and governance frameworks shape responsible and trustworthy synthetic data use. • Understand how Common Data Models (e.g. OMOP) enable interoperability and multisite analysis, supported by synthetic data. • Synthesise technical and social perspectives to identify practical, trustworthy pathways to scale synthetic health data initiatives. • Articulate what “good” implementation looks like for Australia over the next 12-24 months and identify concrete next steps for collaboration.
Presenters
Professor James Boyd, La Trobe University
Professor James Boyd is the inaugural Chair of Digital Health and Innovation at La Trobe University, where he leads the University’s strategy in research, education, and health system transformation through digital technology and data-driven solutions. His work focuses on addressing fragmentation in health information, advancing integrated models of care, and supporting evidence-based improvements in patient outcomes and system efficiency. With over 25 years’ experience in population health data linkage and analytics, Professor Boyd is an international expert in using large-scale, linked administrative health datasets to generate actionable intelligence for policy, clinical practice, and health service evaluation. He was a pioneer in the development of Privacy-Preserving Record Linkage (PPRL), enabling secure, cross-jurisdictional data integration to support chronic disease surveillance, service optimisation, and preventive health initiatives. Over the past decade, Professor Boyd has led the design, implementation, and evaluation of digitally enabled care models, including remote patient monitoring and virtual emergency care. Notably, he co-led the development of Victoria’s state-wide Virtual Emergency Department (VVED), which enhanced access, improved clinical outcomes, and streamlined emergency service delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. In addition, Professor Boyd co-chairs the Synthetic Data Community of Practice (SynD) under the Digital Health CRC, a national initiative advancing the safe and effective use of synthetic health data to accelerate research, education, and digital health innovation while preserving privacy and governance standards. Through this work, he helps shape policy, standards, and collaborative technical solutions that enable the responsible scaling of synthetic data use in the Australian health sector. Professor Boyd’s research and leadership integrate data governance, digital infrastructure, evaluation science, and workforce development to support sustainable, equitable, and evidence-driven transformation of health systems at both national and international levels.
Professor Simon Thompson, Swansea University
Simon Thompson is a Professor of Health Informatics and the senior technical academic for all data research investments in Swansea University. He is a systems architect with many years’ experience in the NHS and academia. He is the Chief Technology Officer of a large team of talented and diversely skilled software developers, data innovation specialists and enterprise architecture engineers. Simon leads the innovation, design, development and implementation of all SeRP technical system developments. He is responsible for delivering the technical workstream for Swansea University as part of multiple UK networks of health and administrative data research centres of excellence and international collaborations.
Professor Ashley Akbari, Swansea University
Ashley is a Professor of Population Data Science Research at Swansea University. Based at Swansea University since 2008, Ashley plays a substantive role in major research programmes & projects utilising population-scale data across the UK and collaborates with colleagues internationally. Ashley is the Head of the User and Data Support Services (UDSS) team & Research Innovation at the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank, and is a Senior Management Board member of the SAIL Databank and the Secure eResearch Platform (SeRP) at Swansea University. Through these roles, Ashley contributes to the strategic development of services that enable research, and to the delivery of research that utilises trusted research environments (TREs) in Wales and across the UK, including the acquisition of new data sources that can add value to existing and future research activities, and utilisation of opportunities to drive research development including synthetic data use and common data models. Ashley is the lead for the SAFER (SAIL Advancing Federated Exploration and Readiness) project, which has assessed the SAIL Databank's readiness to be a TRE as part of a federated network. Championing Team Science, Ashley leads and collaborates with multidisciplinary, multi-organisational groups to develop and deliver research that promotes the translation of research outcomes into policy across academia, health and care services, and government, in order to improve services and people’s lives. One of the programmes Ashley plays a key role in is Administrative Data Research Wales (ADR Wales), where he is the academic lead for the Ymateb theme (formerly known as Major Societal Challenges), which supports government and policy leads in responding to key priority areas and delivering impactful research. Ashley is particularly interested in promoting Team Science and developing the next generation of data scientists. As the Director of the Population Data Science Internship Programme, Ashley promotes opportunities for early-career researchers and students to develop their technical skills and experience working on funded real-world projects and teams.
Lewis Hotchkiss, Swansea University
Lewis Hotchkiss is Senior Research Officer at Dementias Platform UK Data Portal and SeRP where he leads research on Responsible AI, Synthetic Data, Neuroimaging and Federation in the context of sensitive data research and Trusted Research Environments (TREs). Lewis currently leads the UK Synthetic Data Community Group which ran a series of stakeholder workshops to develop governance, tools and standards for synthetic data in the UK. His work spans governance and technological developments to advance the capabilities of TREs for advanced data research.
Chris Orton, Swansea University
Chris Orton is Head of Business Development for the Secure eResearch Platform (SeRP) and SAIL Databank at Swansea University. Chris’ primary role for both SeRP and SAIL is to drive use of the unique research infrastructure and data assets which both SeRP and SAIL have developed over the last 10+ years, and is responsible for managing strategic relationships with SeRP and SAIL’s wide-ranging customer and collaborator portfolio across the world. Chris has over 10 years’ experience in developing and operating trusted research environments (TREs) within the UK and in supporting international deployment of research infrastructure. As well as operating research environments, Chris has a track record of developing research programmes using national and international data, and brokering research partnerships in making the most of cutting-edge research infrastructure and data. Chris currently has two other main leadership positions, as Technical Lead for Population Research UK (PRUK), a UK Research and Innovation funded initiative to improve research infrastructure for longitudinal population studies across social sciences and biomedical data; and in a similar position for the Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) Inflammation and Immunity Driver Programme, seeking to use the programme’s research endeavours as catalysts for using novel analytical deployment methods such as those emerging through the Data and Analytics Research Environments (DARE) UK initiative, of which Chris is a co-lead for its infrastructure development programme, TREvolution. Chris led a recent synthetic data-based workshop as part of the Administrative Data Research UK conference in September 2025, providing technical and data support to attendees, and is currently exploring, alongside the SeRP and SAIL teams, the next steps for synthetic data across training, development, and federation pathways.
Cathy Moore, WA Department of Health
With extensive experience leading digital and data initiatives across mining, government and health sectors, Cathy Moore has worked at the intersection of technology, analytics and operational improvement. Her work includes leadership of major data linkage initiatives that enable the responsible use of connected data to inform policy, planning and research. Cathy has also led large scale data transformation programs focused on improving how information is governed, managed and shared to support better decision making and service delivery. She is passionate about the practical use of connected data to improve outcomes through collaboration, innovation and inclusive leadership.
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