ADR England
The last year has focused on greater engagement with our administrative data research communities as well as seeing early investments in data and research come to fruition.
More ADR England flagship datasets are being created and used than ever before. Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD), which links health and education data, now has over 50 project applications - with more in the pipeline. We have also been working with the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC to make linked income, benefits and migrant worker data available for research as another flagship dataset, reflecting our priority to open up access to more economic data.
The final ADR UK Research Fellowships cohort for the current investment period saw another 13 fellows awarded funding. This makes a total of 49 fellowships funded by ADR UK, five of which were awarded thanks to additional co-funding from ADR Scotland, ESRC and the Medical Research Council. The fellows have been showcasing their work nationally and internationally, and this year also saw our first in-person meeting for all fellows, which focused on building communities.
Impactful research through Community Catalyst networks
The two ADR England Research Community Catalyst networks, Youth Transitions and Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes, are now helping to drive more impactful research use of ADR England flagship datasets. They have launched their co-created research agendas, data tools and other resources, as well as driven capacity-building and engagement events bringing researchers and stakeholders together around shared interests. These teams have also attracted additional co-funding from ESRC to build capacity in using administrative data to evaluate public policy.
The ADR England Research Community Catalysts have reached out across sectors and disciplines, forming exciting new mixes of people to think through knotty issues and share experiences around specific themes. Meanwhile, ADR UK alumni from Manchester Metropolitan University - who hosted the launch of a new Northern Data Hub - also stimulated thinking about how the programme can support new networks geographically. Building on this, we are facilitating communities to co-create recommendations for how we can support sustainable community-led activities.
Researcher training and capacity building expansion
This year has also seen continued expansion of ADR England training and capacity building activities. A recent audit of ADR England’s offering paints a rich picture of varied educational approaches reaching a range of learners across career levels and sectors. Through our partnerships with NCRM (National Centre for Research Methods) and CEPEO (Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities), we were able to increase the number of places on courses to support specific datasets, alongside providing new courses to fill gaps in researchers’ knowledge.
With our ADR England budgets broadly allocated, our focus this year has shifted to driving impactful research through strengthened communities. We’ve co-created research agendas with communities of practice, supported community-led action, promoted funding opportunities, and assisted with bid development. ADR England’s data holds enormous potential—and the key to unlocking even more of it lies in harnessing broader funding streams and empowering communities to collaborate in answering society’s most pressing questions.
Over the past year, ADR England has continued to flourish. The use of our flagship datasets for public good research has grown significantly, which is testament to all those involved in supporting researchers to understand these complex, rich datasets. Our growing bank of case studies illustrate the research now being generated is returning important new insights back to policymakers across a range of topics. As we move into our next investment phase, I am excited to see what we can deliver with an increased budget and even stronger engagement across government.
Award-winning ECHILD dataset explores links between children’s health and education
ECHILD stands for Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data. This ADR England-funded project, led by University College London, has developed a research-ready database linking health, education and social care data for all children born in England from 1984 onwards. The ECHILD project was successful in winning the Secure Data Creation Award at the ONS Research Excellence Awards 2024, partly in recognition of the outstanding training and support offer developed to advance use of the dataset.
ADR UK is funding seven research fellows to use ECHILD to explore the links between children’s health and education. Research questions considered in these projects include understanding mental and physical health contributions to school absence inequalities, the impact of an Autism diagnosis on health and education outcomes, and educational outcomes after paediatric brain injury.
The dataset is now available for public good research in the ONS Secure Research Service. Projects using this data will generate valuable insights to help shape policies and improve support for children and young people. In this way, ECHILD is helping to improve understanding of the drivers of inequalities and how they might be tackled, aligning to the UK Government’s mission of breaking down barriers to opportunities.
Partnering with Department for Education to connect government and academics
The ADR England-funded Department for Education (DfE) Data Access and Engagement Programme is delivering on its commitment to improve access to education data and increase the dialogue between government policy, analytical teams and researchers. DfE has run a series of policy roundtables with researchers, covering topics such as school attendance, children’s social care, and special educational needs and disabilities and inclusive mainstream education. Over 160 individual external research stakeholders have attended these events, representing around 110 organisations.
The DfE’s Areas of Research Interest were published in April and disseminated widely. By aligning their research to policy areas where better evidence is needed, researchers can generate insights that will inform decisions to improve lives.
Alongside the engagement work, this project is resourcing the secure sharing of more DfE data with ONS for research applications. Progress has been made on creating a linked dataset comprised of National Pupil Database, Individualised Learner Records, Higher Education data and DfE survey data. This upcoming research-ready dataset will provide researchers with a broader set of variables across more cohorts. This will help manage demand as the DfE data sharing service continues to see a growth in the number of applications.
Collaborating with HMRC to open up new data for public good research
The ADR England grant funding awarded to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is supporting work exploring how to scale up research using HMRC’s administrative data. The project is looking at current use of HMRC data by researchers and will propose a future research strategy, drawn from extensive user engagement to ensure research access meets user needs.
HMRC hosted its first engagement event for Areas of Research Interest in April 2025, with over 60 people attending. The project is also considering how HMRC data can be linked to other sources, building on the strength of the successful linkage with HMRC data within Longitudinal Education Outcomes. This ADR UK flagship dataset is being used to provide transformative evidence around the longer-term labour market outcomes and educational pathways of 38 million individuals.
Work is underway to assess HMRC’s current cataloguing and governance processes, with the goal of improving documentation and making datasets easier to discover. Enhancing access to linked economic administrative data is a key priority for ADR England to support research on economic growth and productivity across the UK. This year, ADR UK has also helped make HMRC data available for research through the SAIL Databank in Wales, expanding the offer beyond the existing HMRC data linked with ONS data in the ONS Secure Research Service.
