Gateway Releases
Welcome to our release notes summary page!
Here, you can learn more about the Health Data Research Gateway and Cohort Discovery Service's newest features, improvements, and updates, through quarterly release summaries designed to be more digestible than our full ticket by ticket release notes. If you are interested in the detail, the Health Data Research Gateway’s full release notes can be accessed here, and the Cohort Discovery Service’s full release notes can be found on our repos here, here, and here.
Our Technology Team is committed to continuous enhancement, delivering regular updates and improvements through agile, user-focused development.
If you would like to share feedback or suggest improvements to add to the Gateway roadmap, please contact us through our Support Centre.
Note: These periodic release summaries are produced using Github Changelogs and Copilot, and published after manual curation.
Widgets
It is now possible for Data Custodians to create custom widgets, enabling the display of Gateway content within external websites.
Those with Team Admin or Developer permissions have the option of including Datasets & BioSamples, Data Uses/ Research Projects, Analysis Scripts & Software and Collections from across the Gateway within a widget.
Example only
The Gateway produces code that can then be embedded into an external website:
Example only
Full guidance on how to create and manage widgets can be found here.
Accessibility Statement
We are pleased to share our Accessibility Statement, which is located in the footer section of the Gateway. Our accessibility commitment:
- ensures website visitors can easily understand our web pages by making the content as simple as possible,
- allows for a reasonable amount of text resizing,
- enables users to navigate of most of the website using just a keyboard,
- allows users to perceive and navigate the website using screen recognition software such as JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver.
More details can be found in the full statement linked above.
Updates to the Support Centre
We have streamlined the number of options for raising tickets to the Gateway Service Desk to simplify the process for users. Now users can either ‘Share feedback’ or ‘Get Help / Report an Issue’, to easily distinguish between sharing feedback and informing us of bugs/support requests.
Improvements to page load speeds
Users will spend less time waiting for pages to load and more time browsing content, with faster load times for the following:
We are continuing to make improvements to page load speeds across the rest of the platform.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Survey
Following user feedback, we have reduced the frequency of the survey pop-up on the website. The CSAT survey will now appear on a quarterly basis.
Release of Metadata Schema Version 4.0.0
We have made some changes to the metadata schema for Datasets & BioSamples on the Gateway. These changes are relevant to users uploading metadata to the Gateway and apply to the following fields:
- Nesting dataset subtype under dataset type: allowing more logical user navigation of filter options for dataset types and related subtypes. Subtype options will now show under the parent dataset type.
- Simplifying URL regex: to enable stronger validation of URLs entered into the metadata on-boarding form.
- Changing the field name from ‘alternate identifier’ to ‘Dataset & BioSample alias’: Allowing consistent and clearer wording for ‘alias’ functionality and utilisation of colloquial names or acronyms for Datasets & BioSamples.
- Changing the title of ‘name’ from ‘Name of data provider’ to ‘Name of Data Custodian’: to enable consistency in wording for field name to use ‘Data Custodian’ across all pages and content.
All users affected by the above changes were contacted in August 2025. If you have any questions, reach out to us via our online form or review the supporting documentation:
- HDR UK schema documentation: Creating Metadata – Health Data Research Gateway Technical Documentation – Confluence
- Metadata Onboarding and Integrations: Metadata Onboarding – Data Custodians – Health Data Research Gateway
Refining search results by ‘Data type’ and ‘Subtype’:
As a result of the above metadata schema changes, users can now easily filter for data subtypes within the ‘Data type’ filter group:
Ability to download submitted Data Access Requests and attachments
Data Custodians are now able to download submitted Data Access Requests and any attachments to review offline. A ‘download’ button can be found against each submitted Data Access Request card within the Manage Data Access Requests section.
Bugs
Since our last release notes publication, we have identified and resolved 17 bugs to ensure the Gateway provides a consistent, smooth and reliable user experience.
V2 endpoints are now available:
We have released new versions of specific endpoints, in order to:
- improve responsiveness
- improve consistency (and therefore reduce the likelihood of future bugs)
- improve system performance
Details of these new endpoints can be found here. Note that v1 of these endpoints still exist but they are ‘deprecated’. We advise users to switch to the v2 equivalents as the Technology Team will no longer be providing support or updating these going forward. Users should expect v1 endpoints to become unresponsive ~5 months from now (Jan 2026). Further deprecation guidance can be found here.
Secondary email verification:
In order to direct notifications to an address that is different to the one used to sign into the Gateway, users can assign a secondary email to their profile. To ensure notifications are sent to the correct address, users are prompted to verify their email within their personal profile. Verifying a secondary email address also supports Cohort Discovery application requests.
Refining search results:
Across the Gateway, it is possible to refine search results by applying filters based on specific attributes, such as ‘Data Custodian’, ‘Geographical coverage’ etc.
Selecting attributes will not only refine results to choose from, but also narrow down the filters that can be selected from and number of corresponding resources (see example below):
User satisfaction survey:
As part of the user satisfaction survey (released February 2025), a free-text box has been introduced, allowing users to provide further detail and justification for their scoring.
Bugs
Since our last release notes publication, we have identified and resolved 39 bugs to ensure the Gateway provides a consistent, smooth and reliable user experience.