Jonathan Wood

Director of Communications & External Affairs @Health Data Research UK (HDR UK)

London, GB

Part of the Senior Leadership Team at HDR UK, a virtual institute with over 130 staff and >350 people involved in its science programmes in all four UK nations. It works to transform lives by accelerating trustworthy access to health data for research.Took over a team with several vacancies which had not had a team leader for several months. Created a new communications strategy for HDR UK and recruited quickly to move from two permanent staff and two contractors to a team of seven.Now lead a team of nine people based up and down the UK covering external communications, events, digital communications and social media, while introducing new external affairs and internal communications rolesLed a project in 2025 to develop a new brand for HDR UK, delivering the five-month project with a design agency on time and with a focus on internal and stakeholder engagement. The strong modern brand meets now meets accessibility standards, brings together our various programmes under one umbrella and is to be launched along with a new websiteLed the launch of the Sudlow Review in Nov 2024, a government commissioned independent report into the health data landscape in the UK. The main recommendation of the review was followed by government, with the announcement six months later of a new £600m Health Data Research Service.Worked with our Events Manager to turn our main conference into a two-day hybrid event with contributed scientific talks and posters, sponsors and exhibition. Introducing registration fees in 2025 has created a new income stream of >£100k.

University of Cambridge

MSci

University of Leeds

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD