Building connections: A year of engagement
ADR UK’s mission relies on a growing network of engagement across different sectors, to ensure the full public good potential of administrative data is realised. Here are some of the activities we’ve carried out this year:
Engaging with researchers
The ADR UK Conference 2023 brought the administrative data research community to Birmingham to exchange knowledge and ideas. Focused on the theme of ‘Public data for resilience and inclusion: Using administrative data to inform policy and practice in challenging times’, the event involved a wide variety of inspiring keynote speeches, presentations and workshops. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) led the delivery of the conference in partnership with ADR UK, developing an inspiring programme that brought 400 delegates together.
The wide variety of presentations at the conference continued to make an impact beyond November, as a selection of presenters and keynote speakers were invited to take part in this year's ONS’s Research Excellence Series. This popular series demonstrates the value of research using data in improving people’s lives. ADR UK also showcased research projects from across the partnership to a diverse research audience at a Researcher Symposium in June. Focused on the theme of inequalities, this event demonstrated how administrative data opens the possibility of ground-breaking research that addresses real policy problems, using examples of live projects.
ADR UK’s Director, Dr Emma Gordon has presented at a variety of conferences, including Public Service Data Live, Better Statistics, Think Data, and AI UK, to build further connections with the research, policy and wider sectors. ADR UK has also exhibited at other academic conferences this year, to promote the datasets, support and infrastructure available, including events by:
- The Royal Economic Society: To showcase datasets and projects around earnings, pensions and education trajectories.
- Health Data Research UK: To share projects bridging the gap between administrative and health data for public good, such as ECHILD (Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data).
- The UK Evaluation Society: To highlight the potential of administrative data as a means to evaluate interventions in policy and practice. ADR Wales in particular has engaged with evaluators this year, reaching out to those in Welsh Government undertaking this work to ensure they have considered administrative data. ADR Wales also authored an article in Research Matters 2024, calling for researchers to consider the feasibility of using administrative data in evaluation planning.
This work has also continued through the ADR UK Data Roadshow. These workshops – designed to engage a local research community with the power of administrative data– have been delivered in person and online. New this year, host organisations can select from a menu of items to build a bespoke workshop suitable to their needs.
Meanwhile, for researchers already using the ONS Secure Research Service, the ONS continues to run targeted events to keep users up-to-date with the transition to the Integrated Data Service.
Bridging the gap from research to policy and practice
Connecting research evidence using administrative data with better policy and practice is central to ADR UK’s mission, and this year the partnership has continued to play a convening role in bringing these sectors together. Stephanie Howarth, Co-Director of ADR Wales and Chief Statistician for Wales, described some of this work in the Government Transformation Magazine. The article outlines how Stephanie’s team is working alongside the ADR UK investment to harness administrative data more “efficiently, effectively and safely” to improve the evidence base needed for Welsh policy.
Teams from ADR Wales and the Integrated Data Service have participated in Civil Service Live this year to open conversations around the use of data. ADR Wales has also engaged with the government social research community by delivering webinars around how administrative data can contribute to evaluations and policymaking.
In October 2023, ADR Scotland co-hosted an event around the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)’s new areas of research interest. Attended by colleagues from DWP, Scottish Government and researchers from across Scotland, the event explored how administrative data research can respond to these evidence gaps and policy priorities.
The Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) programme is a collaboration led by the Ministry of Justice, between Welsh Government, Public Health Wales, SAIL Databank and UK Government departments. Teams work closely together to design data linkage and analysis addressing complex multi-departmental issues, such as substance misuse and homelessness. By engaging with analysts, policy professional and data owners, the collaboration is better able to identify key opportunities for data linkage research addressing user need.
ADR UK Research Fellows using the Ministry of Justice & Department for Education linked dataset – England were invited to present their findings at an ADR UK showcase, also in October 2023. Drawing attendees from across the voluntary and community sector, the discussions focused on how the research insights generated could inform real improvements in practice.
In November 2023, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA, part of ADR NI) hosted a conference, ‘Future Proofing NI Business Data for Research’, which showcased findings from projects using the data. The event was attended by over 70 researchers, statisticians, economists and policy officials as well as representatives of the business community, bridging the gap between research and policy and enabling conversations on future developments.
Partners across ADR UK co-organised a symposium in March 2024 on data-driven insights into children’s social care. The event reflected the breadth of research aiming to understand the lives of care-experienced children across the UK, as well as introducing the new ADR England Research Community Catalyst for Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes.
Building global connections
ADR UK has developed its international network this year, fostering a growing community of best practice. A delegation led by Consorcio IDI – a consortium of universities for an integrated data infrastructure in Chile – visited members of the ADR UK partnership and attended the ADR UK Conference 2023. This enabled knowledge-sharing and engagement around the public good use of data, and led to a follow-up visit to Consorcio IDI in Chile. The continued development of this relationship will allow best practice for data infrastructure to be shared across the countries.
Representatives from ADR UK and the Economic and Social Research Council this year joined an expert meeting on statistical data confidentiality run by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Their presentation, ‘Smoothing the way for secure data access using synthetic data’, highlighted the value of synthetic data in improving the researcher journey and showcased ADR UK’s progress in this area.
Later this year, ADR UK will participate in the International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) 2024 conference in Chicago, USA. As well as facilitating a variety of presentations and workshops, ADR UK will engage this international audience with the power and potential of administrative data research.
