Cardiovascular imaging research has huge potential to improve patient care and the UK is world-leading in its cardiovascular imaging research. However, the full realisation of this potential will require the harnessing of new large-scale data science resources, linkage to other health data, and novel analysis and machine learning techniques. The British Heart Foundation (BHF) Data Science Centre Imaging Workshop brought together a wide range of stakeholders to explore the opportunities and challenges to improve cardiovascular imaging research, and address the central question of How can we use imaging data to better understand cardiovascular disease? The insights gathered in the workshop have been used to guide our plans in this area, with the aim of advancing the use of imaging data in cardiovascular disease research to improve patient care. We plan to identify and obtain consensus on priorities in cardiovascular imaging research, to address key challenges in delivering these such as data access, storage, processing, and linkage to heath data, and to engage with patients and the public to obtain and maintain trust.