A message from our Head of Trading Services

A message from

our Head of Trading Services

Tim Gibbons, Head of Trading Services

Last year was a big year for us. After the launch of EDGE 3, we turned our focus to delivering the functionality that the new version of EDGE and its technology made possible. Our long-awaited dashboard widgets, dark mode feature, MFA and Active Directory log-in methods went live in EDGE as well as the launch of the new community forum, Shareedge. The Community forum is for everyone, to discuss and learn around shared interests, exchange knowledge, build connections and seek support.

But, behind the scenes, we were also tinkering under the hood at some really important stuff. In January of this year, the CIRU invited the auditor from British Standards into our office to conduct a five-day audit of EDGE against the ISO 27001 framework for data security. The framework scrutinises the procedures in place for managing sensitive participant information, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability through risk management, security controls, and continuous improvement practices. The CIRU are proud to say we were successful in attaining a full certification with no major or minor non-conformances.  

With February now in bloom, it’s a great time for us to talk about what 2025 means to us here at CIRU. Now, although our unit is over 40 years old, EDGE, our flagship product turns 25 this year. To celebrate, we will be holding a ‘Silver Jubilee’ conference at a brand-new venue, the Hilton London Heathrow T5. The EDGE Conference TOGETHER 25 is the opportunity to unite with fellow members of the EDGE community and showcase the strength of working together. There will also be new functions coming out the door from document searching, new API’s, enhanced finance tools, and multi-language options.

I will sign off as always with thanks to you, our amazing EDGE community - 2024 was transformative to how we work and your feedback in our October survey, your creativity in the webinar series, and your collaboration are the cornerstones of our progress. We’re grateful for your work and enabling us to keep growing together.

We look forward to seeing you at the EDGE Conference in June.

The EDGE Roadmap

The EDGE Roadmap

Available to users under the EDGE Community Forum

The Shareedge Community Forum which was launched as a new collaborative tool for EDGE users last year, now has over 800 members. A big thank you goes to everyone who has taken the time to join and who is keeping active on the platform.

Most recently, a new space for those working in Pharmacy has been set up, so if you have an EDGE account and work within this department, we urge you to join this space and share how you are utilising EDGE to help others who are yet to implement EDGE in Pharmacy. There are lots of other spaces to join to help advance EDGE skills, including groups around EDGE Finance and Reporting, as well keeping up with our monthly features such as our Super User Q&A’s and User Top Tips.

A second space we recently set up is one called Roadmap. The roadmap space is led by our Product Manager Nicky Morris and aims to keep users informed of key new functionality we have released and are working on. Within this particular space you will see the categories 'Freshly Released,' 'On the Horizon,' and 'What's Next', which provide a clear overview of the major development projects in the pipeline for EDGE. While not every update will be listed, we hope this enhanced visibility helps us collaborate more closely with the EDGE community and ensure that EDGE continues to evolve in line with users needs.

Users can access the Community Forum by logging into EDGE and going to Support > Community Forum. Enjoy!

A Christmas message

A Christmas

message from the EDGE Team

As we are fast approaching the Christmas period, we wanted to take this opportunity to share a short update from us at the Clinical Informatics Research Unit, University of Southampton. You can find details on our Christmas and New Year Closure times below, these are useful in case users need to get hold of us for any support issues over the festive time.

In the New Year we will be bringing back the full edition of Knowedge the EDGE Community & Service News update, to our Admin and Lead Admin users. We look forward to continuing the sharing of EDGE community features and news with the community, in what is a very important year for us – marking 25 years of EDGE. This will be celebrated at the event of the year, The EDGE Conference: TOGETHER 25. You can learn more about the conference here.

In January we also look forward to bringing a summary of key development features released throughout 2024 and news on what new pieces are in the pipeline following user feedback from our EDGE Usability Survey, past discussions at the EDGE Conference 2024, as well as within the Shareedge Community Forum.

We would like to share a very big thank you to all of the EDGE Community. We hope you enjoy the Christmas break and we look forward to another year of working with you.

Together 25: The EDGE Conference 2025

Together 25

The EDGE Conference 2025

Following on from another successful EDGE Conference which was held back in April of this year, we are thrilled to share with you details of our next EDGE Conference!

‘TOGETHER 25’ marks 25 years of EDGE at the Clinical Informatics Research Unit and will celebrate 25 years of sharing, learning, and innovating with you, the EDGE Community. TOGETHER 25 also aims to kickstart shaping the next 25 years of research excellence with the help of our global userbase. The event will showcase EDGE expert users working within the field of research, who will share their best practice, knowledge, and practical ways in utilising EDGE to ultimately shape research excellence and efficiency.

Our Silver Jubilee will be taking place at a brand-new venue of the EDGE Conference, the Hilton London Heathrow T5 on the 4th and 5th June 2025. We are excited to be using a new venue for this special event and feel that the Hilton London T5 is the perfect fit to mark the 25-year occasion, with its flexible and purpose-build event space.

TOGETHER 25 is the opportunity to unite with fellow members of the EDGE community and will showcase the strength of working together.  

We have now opened bookings and our currently taking speaker submission where users from across the UK and at our overseas organisations will be taking the stage to share their best practice to the community.

For more information on the EDGE Conference 2025, see our dedicated webpage here.

A visit to our Canadian Users

A visit to

our Canadian Users

Last month Jen Peach, Knowledge Team Manager, Ben Grace, Client Manager, and our Head of Operations and Delivery, Baljinder Gill took a trip over to Canada to visit some of our Canadian users. They visited EDGE Lead Admins from The 3CTN Coordinating Centre in Toronto and the Juravinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton. Ben and Bal also visited the Lead Admins from Alberta Innovates in Calgary.

Jen and Ben provided two full days of joint training sessions for the new Lead Admins and finance teams for University Health Network (UHN) and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Jen, Ben, and Bal also visited both UHN and Sunnybrook locations in Toronto to discuss the use of EDGE within the organisations.

Ben and Bal visited the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary where they completed further training for end-users, Lead Admins, and the finance team.

Pictured: James Schoales, Portfolio Data Analyst - 3CTN, Baljinder Gill, Head of Operations and Delivery - CIRU, UoS, Stephen Sundquist, Executive Director - 3CTN, Rebecca Xu, Portfolio and Informatics Manager - 3CTN, Jen Peach, Knowledge Team Manager, and Ben Grace, Client Manager - CIRU, UoS 

An EDGE International visit

An EDGE

International visit

Last month, our Director, Professor James Batchelor and Head of Trading Services, Tim Gibbons, were invited by the Rosemary Bryant Institute at the University of South Australia to speak to the University and representatives from the States Health Groups about their experiences of working across health research in the UK and some of the international successful research programmes they have worked on. Tim and James covered many topics including Health Data Platforms, Secure Data Environments (SDE), Open Plan Care, Hospital Eco-Systems, Accelerating Cancer Clinical Trial Activity and Data Squishing for Fun (a personal passion of James!) The Rosemary Bryant Institute are a close partner of CIRU as both are centres that host Sri Lankan Research Fellows from the Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health, a collaboration which spans over 10,000 miles.

From Adelaide, James and Tim travelled to Auckland, New Zealand, to meet with our long-standing EDGE users and lead champions at the University of Auckland (Waipapa Taumata Rau) and Te Whatu Ora Te Toka Tumai Auckland. On a round-robin tour, they met with groups from the top to bottom of the country including Waikato, Otago, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. They discussed the benefits and pitfalls of digital transformation in the health service and the advantages leveraged across the UK from close collaboration, as well as the advancements that have been achieved in using single platforms within a research office geography and a shared approach to research.

James and Tim were of course accompanied by EDGEY, who very much enjoyed himself on his South Australia and New Zealand tour!