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Fiona Lugg-Widger

Dr Fiona Lugg-Widger

(she/her)

Teams and roles for Fiona Lugg-Widger

  • Director of Data, Senior Research Fellow

    Centre for Trials Research

Overview

I am the Director of Data at the Centre for Trials Research and a senior trials methodologist with internationally recognised expertise in designing and delivering large, complex, multi-disciplinary trials and population health studies. My research focuses on the effective use of routinely collected and linked data to generate policy-relevant evidence that improves health and social care outcomes.

As Director of Data, I provide senior leadership to the Centre’s Data and Technology team, shaping data strategy and operations. My remit spans the entire research data lifecycle - covering bespoke prospective trial data, qualitative data, routine and linked data, governance, data sharing, and the integration of emerging data types.

I continue to lead the Centre’s routine data portfolio, ensuring high-quality, transparent and efficient data practices across studies. I am also the executive lead for our working group on responsible AI adoption within the operational delivery of trials, exploring and implementing innovative approaches that enhance trial efficiency, data quality, workflow automation, and decision-support while ensuring reagulatory compliant, transparent, and human-centred practice.

I am committed to creating a positive, supportive research culture and have a strong interest in staff and student wellbeing. I am an accredited iACT manager and lead the Centre’s Work Wellbeing Group.

In collaboration with the CARE Centre, I co-lead the NIHR-funded CARE Lab study with Professor Jonathan Scourfield. CARE Lab aims to transform adult social care research by developing better ways to use complex social care datasets, identifying gaps in the current evidence base and creating new data-driven methods to improve outcomes for adults who draw on care and support in Wales.

I also lead work to improve data accessibility, methodological innovation, and public trust. This includes the Discussing Data Project, which co-developed ten recommendations with forty members of the UK public on how data owners should make and share synthetic data, and how they should talk to the public about it.

Capacity Building and Skills Development

I have a strong track record in developing research capacity, including:

  • Hosting interns through the HDR UK Black Internship Programme

  • Supporting MEDIC Student Selected Components

  • Supervising PhD students

  • Leading national and UK-wide training initiatives to strengthen skills in routine data research

This includes my current work with TOP-CAT as part of HDR UK’s Transforming Data for Trials programme and HDR UK Wales - developing and delivering courses and training for the UK trials community using health systems data. Training content is available on HDR UK Futures, search 'trials'.

Public Trust and Communication

Strengthening public understanding of routine data is a key part of my work. In partnership with public contributors, we have co-produced freely available animations explaining:

These resources support transparency, trust, and informed public dialogue around data use in research.

Publication

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2015

2014

Articles

Conferences

Monographs

Thesis

Websites

Research

My research focuses on the design, delivery, and methodological development of complex population health and social care trials, with a particular emphasis on the effective use of routinely collected, linked, and emerging data sources. I have a strong interest in advancing data infrastructures, governance models, and analytic approaches that enable high-quality, policy-relevant research, including work on adult social care datasets, social work interventions, and large-scale service evaluations.

A prominant strand of my work is dedicated to early years and family-focused interventions, including large-scale evaluations of the Family Nurse Partnership, the Social Workers in Schools trial, and the Family Group Conference programme. These studies use rigorous designs, mixed methods, and extensive data linkage to understand how early support for families affects later life outcomes, service use, wellbeing, and safeguarding.

My broader portfolio of work centres on improving the methodological foundations for trials using routine data - developing reporting guidelines, identifying priority methodological gaps and creating national training programmes. This extends to the responsible use of synthetic data, public trust, and transparent communication about data use.

I also lead and collaborate on evaluations of complex interventions across education, health, youth justice, and child welfare systems, using mixed methods and data linkage to understand outcomes, causal pathways, and system impacts.

Together, my grants reflect research interests in:

  • Routine, linked, and administrative data, including social care, police, health, education, and workforce datasets

  • Adult social care research, especially the power of linked data and methodological innovation

  • Methodology for trials using routine data, including guidelines, priority-setting, synthetic data, and responsible AI

  • Complex intervention evaluation across public health, social care, youth justice, and education

  • COVID-19 and workforce health research

  • Building research capacity, including training programmes, consensus methods, stakeholder engagement, and public involvement

  • Enhancing trial delivery through data innovation, AI, and improved operational processes

This body of work reflects a commitment to strengthening the evidence base for health and social care services, improving data-enabled research, and ensuring that data-intensive trials are conducted ethically, transparently, and in partnership with the public.

Biography

I regularly contribute to national webinars, invited talks, and policy forums on routine data, data linkage, and trial methodology, and have provided expert evidence to UK parliamentary committees. My research has received widespread media coverage, including BBC, ITV, Wales Online and The Independent. I serve on several national funding, ethics and data advisory committees and have received recent awards for innovation and capacity building. I also engage in public and policy dialogue through invited blogs and commentary.

Honours and awards

Best Oral Presentation: Training and Capacity Building Category (ADR UK Conference 2025)

Innovation in Patient and Public Involvement Oral Presentation Award Winner (International Clinical Trials Methodology Conference 2024)

Professional memberships

'CASCID-2' (Catalogue of Social Care Individualised Data) stakeholder advisory group October 2025 - present

Trials Methodology Research Partnership Health Informatics Strategy Group. March 2020 - Present

Trials Methodology Research Partnership Health Informatics Routine Data Topic Group. March 2020 - Present

Academic positions

November 2025 - Present: Director of Data, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trials Research (CTR), Cardiff University

July 2023 – November 2025: Deputy Director for Data, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trials Research (CTR), Cardiff University

January 2019 – July 2023: Research Fellow – Routine Data, Centre for Trials Research (CTR), Cardiff University

April 2014 – Dec 2018: Research Associate – Routine Data, Centre for Trials Research (CTR), Cardiff University.

Jan 2011 – April 2014: PhD studentship, Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Cardiff University.

Speaking engagements

Recent invited speaker events and webinars
Public and Policy Engagement activities
  •        Policy Forum for Wales keynote seminar: Priorities for healthcare in Wales – March 2025. Invited expert speaker and Panel member
  •        Public Health Research and Science Conference 2021: Children and Young People "Implementing and evaluating a licenced intensive home visiting programme" Panel Member
  •        House of Commons Science and Technology Committee – Digital Government Inquiry. 2018. Oral and Written evidence.
 

Committees and reviewing

NIHR Research Programme for Social Care Funding Committee member September 2025 - present

Asthma and Lung UK Funding Committee member Feb 2025 – May 2025

Open Research Integrity and Ethics Committee September 2021 – August 2025

Supervisions

Current supervision

Rob Maddison

Rob Maddison

Contact Details

Email [email protected]
Telephone +44 29206 87519
Campuses Neuadd Meirionnydd, Floor 7, University Hospital of Wales, Heath Park, Cardiff, CF14 4YS

Research themes

Specialisms

  • Adult Social Care
  • children and family social work
  • children's social care
  • Clinical Trials
  • Electronic Health Records
Finding improvements to adult social care through data

Finding improvements to adult social care through data

03 June 2025

External profiles