Annual Report 2025-2026

This year saw the start of an exciting new chapter for ADR UK, as six months ago we entered our new five-year investment period (2026-2031). This new funding sent a clear signal of the sector's and government's continued confidence in the use of administrative data research to improve lives and drive economic growth. We've used this momentum to grow. Our portfolio of data has expanded, as has our team in priority areas, allowing us to extend our reach and increase our impact across our UK-wide partnership.

The evidence of what administrative data research can achieve continues to build. This year has brought further proof of its power to improve lives, from building our understanding of routes to homelessness in Northern Ireland and Wales, to informing areas of research interest in Scotland and identifying new approaches to tackling regional inequalities across England and the UK – tangible examples of how our work translates into better outcomes for people across the four nations. See these stories and more in the impact section of this report.

To further grow our impact, this year a new senior lead for policy engagement has joined the ADR UK Strategic Hub to embed our data-led evidence into decision-making through a new policy engagement strategy. One highlight so far would be attending Evidence Week in UK Parliament where ADR UK Fellow, Dr Vickie Barrett, brought new youth justice policy recommendations directly to MPs, Peers and Parliamentary staff. We’ll be following the outcome of this work closely in the coming months.

We've also continued to bring our work to new audiences to support transparency and knowledge building with the public; the ultimate owners of the data we use. Our participation in the Pint of Science events brought our research into UK pubs, while presenting at How the Light Gets In took administrative data into the festival space. New episodes of our Connecting Society podcast – now available in video format - have brought fresh expertise from across the data world into the conversation.

Our influence has grown on the international stage too. We've strengthened our work with global partners, including through our attendance at the IPDLN (International Population Data Linkage Network) conference in Rotterdam, and look forward to taking a leading role in shaping a standardised approaches to AI use among international data linkage teams. This will include partnering with DARE UK on a public dialogue to ensure the views of the public support and inform our direction. Find out more about all our events and engagement work this year in the special feature in this report. 

Closer to home, we've made significant early progress against a key objective: safely opening up economic data for research to support the government's growth agenda. Our new flagship dataset, RAPID: Population interactions with employment, benefits and pensions – UK, links data from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for the first time. Now available for project approvals, its launch marks real momentum in this area of research with high impact potential, especially as this is our first UK-wide dataset. This year has also seen the secure release of Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data for Scotland and Northern Ireland, along with enhancements to the LEO data for England.

To support the use of our datasets, we have funded two new ADR UK Academic Leads focused on Better Economic Data and the Ministry of Justice Data First programme. These projects support ADR UK’s key government partners with academic expertise, to enhance the administrative data available for research and maximise the public good potential of our flagship datasets.

A further step change has seen our partnership with the training provider Datacise Open Learning grow this year, allowing us to expand our training offer, ensuring we have a pipeline of skilled researchers using administrative data now and in the future. Training available to researchers this year has included an ‘Introduction to Government, Policy and Impact’ course, to build researchers’ capabilities to engage with policymakers for the benefit of the public. This work forms part of ADR UK’s wider training and capacity building strategy for the next five years.

This is a genuinely exciting time for ADR UK. This annual report celebrates everything we've achieved this year, while also looking ahead to our plans for this new funding period – and the difference we intend to make with it.

Dr Emma Gordon