Latest News: 21 April 2025

TROG Cancer Research is among 70 research bodies in Australia that are supporting a national initiative to make existing health and medical research data easier to find, boosting secondary use of valuable clinical trials research data.

The Health Studies Australian National Data Asset (HeSANDA) project is an Australia-first data-sharing platform to make metadata from investigator-initiated clinical trials findable and accessible to support secondary use, so researchers can use existing health data to answer new research questions.

The project is a collaboration of nine node partners, including universities, research institutes, health services and the 14 Cancer Cooperative Trial Groups (CCTGs), of which TROG Cancer Research is a member.

An online catalogue of metadata about research outputs, called Health Data Australia, was launched in 2023. Researchers can add their projects to the database, as well as search for other research to enhance their investigations.

The project aims to:

• Enable the building of richer and more extensive data sets
• Inspire new research questions and generate new hypotheses
• Synchronise research efforts, reduce duplication and save money
• Extend the value of participant contributions in research and increase the impact of research on health services

Dataset descriptions from a number of TROG-led trials are now listed in the catalogue, which includes research metadata rather than the full data or outputs. Researchers can submit a request to access data via the platform, and it is then forwarded to the data custodian.

Any requests for access to TROG trial data will be referred to us and processed according to our Secondary Data Analysis guidelines.

The HeSANDA project is supported by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), which is funded by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) for Australia.

• Access the Health Data Australia database

• Find out about TROG’s Secondary Data Analysis processes (accessible to TROG Members)