Skip to main content

OpenSAFELY community

Welcome to the OpenSAFELY community! We are a group of researchers, analysts, and various professionals from a range of fields who share a common interest in the workings and success of OpenSAFELY. If you’d like to consider yourself part of this community, then we’d love to have you.

Researchers with approved projects will be added to the Bennett Institute’s #opensafely Slack channel, which is one of the major ways we at the Institute communicate with our active users. We also run various events and use other channels to engage with community members who are not part of the Slack channel; please read on for more detail.

Ways to get involved

  • Keep up-to-date with new features and changes, which are listed on the platform news page
  • Read project news and thinking-out-loud from BI staff on the blog (sign up for email updates, or subscribe to the RSS feed)
  • Talk to fellow researchers on the #opensafely Slack channel
  • Attend community events such as our office hours and User Group Meetings ↓

OpenSAFELY events

Wednesdays from 10.30am – 12pm are recurring OpenSAFELY community sessions, open to anyone who wants to attend. We alternate between office hours one week, and an ehrQL coding club session the next; the Google calendar can be found here.

We also run less regular events focused around specific topics, including the User Group Meeting every three months.

Training

We run regular in-person and online training workshops, seminars and informal talks. Attendance is free, but places are usually limited: please make sure you book a slot in advance. We publicise these on our Blog and the Platform News page.