Building a sustainable data foundation for adolescent mental health research
BrainWaves is a long-term research and education programme working to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people. It brings together researchers, schools and young people to build new evidence about adolescent wellbeing and translate that evidence into practical resources for education.
Adolescent mental health and wellbeing
UK-wide programme
Dedicated, branded TRE Hub
Infrastructure, data management, governance, data collection
At the heart of the programme is a growing longitudinal cohort and a dedicated research data hub. NDP provides the secure infrastructure, data management and operational governance that enable BrainWaves to collect and curate data at scale, incorporate complementary research datasets and provide approved researchers with secure access.
BrainWaves leads the research programme, relationships with schools and young people, and decisions about how its data should be used. NDP manages the specialist data infrastructure and operational processes needed to turn those data into a sustainable research resource.
The research programme
Relationships with schools and young people
Data use decisions
Secure infrastructure
Managed data services
Operational governance
Understanding adolescent mental health requires more than a single snapshot. Researchers need to follow young people over time and examine how their wellbeing is shaped by the world around them.
BrainWaves needs to collect information from thousands of young people, maintain consistency across successive waves, preserve the value of the data over many years and enable appropriate secondary research — while protecting the confidentiality of young participants and maintaining the trust of schools, families and the wider BrainWaves community.
Building separate infrastructure and access arrangements for each study would fragment the evidence base and make it harder to investigate questions across different populations and stages of adolescence.
BrainWaves addresses this through a dedicated TRE Hub underpinned by NDP.
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Following adolescent mental health and wellbeing over time
Led by researchers at the University of Oxford, the BrainWaves Cohort Study is creating a large longitudinal resource for adolescent mental health research.
More than 24,000 young people have participated, with data collected across an extensive range of topics. The initial collections focused on young people aged 16 to 19 across three time points. From 2026, the programme is broadening its reach to include participants aged 11 to 20.
Repeated data collection allows researchers to move beyond cross-sectional comparisons and explore how mental health and wellbeing develop over time. It provides a foundation for identifying emerging trends, protective factors, periods of increased vulnerability and the influence of young people’s social and educational environments.
Across three time points
Broadening the programme’s reach
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Creating a richer resource for adolescent mental health research
The BrainWaves Informatics Hub extends beyond the programme’s principal cohort, providing a secure home for related datasets that contribute to a broader understanding of adolescent development, mental health and wellbeing.
By bringing relevant collections together within a common infrastructure, BrainWaves can develop a more coherent research resource and reduce the risk that valuable data remain isolated when individual studies end.
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Collecting information is only the beginning. Longitudinal research depends on data being consistently structured, documented and prepared so that researchers can understand and use them appropriately.
NDP supports BrainWaves with the technical and operational processes required to transform collected information into curated research datasets — a repeatable pathway from each new wave of data collection to controlled research access, able to evolve as BrainWaves introduces new questions, age groups, studies or forms of data.
Each release checked before access
Successive waves tracked over time
Metadata researchers need to interpret it
The result is not simply a repository of completed surveys.
It is a research platform capable of supporting long-term scientific investigation.
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The BrainWaves Trusted Research Environment operates through the Five Safes framework and within an ISO 27001 accredited information security management system.
NDP provides the operational governance supporting the Hub, including data deposit processes, information governance support, researcher onboarding, secure access management and the controlled release of research outputs.
BrainWaves retains responsibility for its scientific direction and data access decisions. Once scientific, ethical and governance requirements are met, NDP manages secure access.
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Approved researchers work remotely within a dedicated BrainWaves environment — detailed data never downloads to their own devices. Windows and Linux desktops are available, with processing capacity configured per project.
Dedicated desktops can be configured where projects need additional specialist software.
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Secure data can only support new research if potential users can understand what is available. NDP provides the discovery infrastructure supporting BrainWaves, so researchers can explore collections and identify relevant data before submitting an application.
BrainWaves also publishes accessible summaries and visualisations across key areas of adolescent mental health and wellbeing, while the detailed research data remain protected within the secure environment.
As NDP’s cross-Hub Data Discovery develops, BrainWaves data can become more visible within the wider neurological and population data landscape.
Compare collections across characteristics and data domains, including:
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BrainWaves is distinctive because its data infrastructure is part of a wider relationship between research, education and young people.
Support the development of the cohort and give young people opportunities to contribute to meaningful research. In return, BrainWaves provides an evidence-based wellbeing curriculum and materials that strengthen critical thinking, media literacy and self-awareness.
Help shape the programme through participation and engagement, ensuring the questions being studied reflect their experiences and priorities.
Provides the secure, sustainable data foundation behind this relationship — helping BrainWaves turn participation into evidence, and evidence into potential improvements in policy and practice.
BrainWaves demonstrates how an ambitious longitudinal research programme can develop a sophisticated and sustainable data capability without independently creating every component required to operate a secure research platform.
NDP provides the infrastructure and specialist operational capability, while BrainWaves retains its own identity, research leadership, relationships with schools and young people, and control over the use of its data.
Infrastructure reused across studies
New waves incorporated systematically
Governance that matures with the programme
Data available beyond funding periods
NDP manages the complexity behind the data. BrainWaves can focus on building healthier young minds through science.
Whether you are creating a new longitudinal cohort, managing sensitive research involving children and young people, bringing together existing datasets or developing a secure route for wider research access, NDP can provide a managed TRE Hub tailored to your programme.
From secure infrastructure and operational governance to data curation, discovery and researcher access.
