A new BioChain publication, The Minimum Evidence Record, v0.1, has gone live this week, examining a deceptively simple question: what happens to the history of evidence when it moves between systems?
Good systems, incomplete history
Modern organisations are rarely short of data. Laboratories have LIMS platforms, businesses have ERP systems, researchers have repositories and analytical environments, and public bodies maintain specialist surveillance and case-management systems. These systems can be extremely good at preserving what happens inside them.
The difficult part starts at the boundary. A biological sample may move from a field team to a laboratory. A sequencing file may move from a sequencing provider to a bioinformatics group. An analytical result may subsequently become evidence in a publication, regulatory submission or public-health decision. Each participant can retain an excellent local audit trail while no single system preserves the complete history of the evidence itself. This is the provenance gap that The BioChain has increasingly been exploring in its research and technical work.
Nine relationships that should travel with a result
The Minimum Evidence Record sets out nine provenance relationships that should travel with a consequential scientific or regulatory result when it leaves the system that produced it — a practical, technology-neutral answer to the provenance gap, rather than an argument that existing databases, audit trails or quality systems are inadequate. In most cases they are doing precisely the job for which they were designed. The question is what happens when the evidence history becomes larger than any one of them.
That distinction matters increasingly in genomics, life sciences, agriculture, food systems, public health and regulated research, where a conclusion may depend upon records and transformations produced by several independent organisations.
Part of a wider body of work
The publication complements The BioChain’s broader work on evidence governance: the idea that the provenance, transformation, interpretation and subsequent use of important evidence increasingly deserve to be treated as a connected governance problem rather than reconstructed after the event.
Questions & Answers
What is the Minimum Evidence Record?
A BioChain publication setting out nine provenance relationships that should travel with a consequential scientific or regulatory result when it leaves the system that produced it.
What problem is it addressing?
The provenance gap: individual systems can each keep an excellent local audit trail, while no single system preserves the complete history of evidence as it crosses organisational boundaries.
Does it argue existing systems are inadequate?
No. Most existing databases, audit trails and quality systems do precisely the job they were designed for. The question is what happens when the evidence history becomes larger than any one of them.
How does it relate to The BioChain’s wider work?
It complements The BioChain’s work on evidence governance — treating the provenance, transformation, interpretation and use of important evidence as a connected governance problem.