ADR England
2025–26 has been a milestone year for ADR England, marking the transition into a new phase of investment and delivery. Following confirmation of renewed UK Research & Innovation funding for ADR UK, ADR England secured £66.2 million in funding for the next five years, enabling continued development of our secure data infrastructure, research partnerships and evidence generation to address key policy priorities for England and the UK.
This year also saw ADR England’s partnership model evolve, with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) taking on a strengthened co-leadership role alongside ADR UK. Alongside this, new core partners from across UK Government – including the Department for Education, NHS England, HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice – came on board to support our ambitious research programmes spanning areas including economic growth, health, education and justice.
In addition to these government partnerships, ADR England continues to work closely with academic partners including UCL’s Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, and the University of the West of England. Their expertise supports the development, accessibility and impact of ADR England flagship datasets including Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO), Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD), and several of our economic datasets.
Alongside data infrastructure, ADR England strengthened its research community. The launch of the ADR England website has created a dedicated hub for datasets, partnerships and research activity across England, while new communities of practice – including the Criminal Justice Administrative Data Network at the University of Huddersfield – are bringing researchers, policymakers and practitioners together to share expertise, improve research quality, and maximise impact.
Academic leadership is also becoming an important part of ADR England’s approach to maximising the value and impact of ADR UK flagship datasets, particularly those with relevance to England. As part of ADR England’s renewed investment, it is supporting new ADR UK Academic Lead teams working with government partners including the Ministry of Justice, Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs. The leads will strengthen researcher capability, support the development and use of flagship datasets, build active research communities and help connect research with government priorities.
Together, these developments lay the foundations for the next phase of ADR England’s mission: enabling secure, impactful research that improves understanding of society’s most pressing challenges and supports better decision-making for people across England and the UK.
This year has marked an important new chapter for ADR England. With renewed investment, strengthened partnerships and continued development of our flagship datasets, we are building the foundations needed to unlock the full potential of administrative data research. By working closely with government, researchers and communities, we can ensure evidence generated through linked administrative data helps address the challenges that matter most to people’s lives.
The partnership between ADR England and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) demonstrates what can be achieved when trusted data infrastructure, government expertise and research capability come together. Through the Secure Research Service, we are enabling researchers to safely access linked administrative data and generate insights that support public good research across England and beyond.
ADR England Research Community Catalysts: Building long-term research infrastructure and capability
ADR England’s Research Community Catalysts were established to strengthen connections between researchers, policymakers, practitioners and voluntary sector organisations around complex social challenges where linked administrative data can provide new insights. The two projects focused on Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes and Youth Transitions, exploring how administrative data could better support research into children’s social care, education, health and employment pathways.
Across the lifetime of the projects, the Community Catalysts mapped existing evidence, explored available data resources and engaged extensively with stakeholders to identify key research gaps and priorities. The Children at Risk of Poor Outcomes Community Catalyst produced a research agenda for children’s social care, informed by a scoping review of administrative data research and consultation with stakeholders across policy, practice and academia. The Youth Transitions Community Catalyst developed a research priorities framework and interactive data navigation tool to help researchers identify relevant administrative datasets and opportunities for future research.
Alongside these outputs, both communities created opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaboration through events, training resources, webinars, online forums and communities of practice, each bringing together hundreds of members. These activities helped researchers build confidence in using administrative data and strengthened links between those generating evidence and those using it to inform policy and practice.
The Community Catalysts have demonstrated the value of bringing together diverse expertise to shape research priorities and improve the use of administrative data. Their outputs, resources and networks will continue to support researchers using ADR England flagship datasets, including the Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data dataset and Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset, helping to address evidence gaps and generate policy-relevant insights.
Looking ahead, the foundations created by the Community Catalysts will support ADR England’s next phase of work, including a greater focus on using linked data to evaluate public policy. By enabling researchers to examine outcomes across different areas of people’s lives, linked administrative data can help build a stronger understanding of what works, for whom and in what circumstances — supporting better evidence-informed decisions and more effective use of public resources.
Department for Education Data Access and Engagement Programme: Making education data easier to access and use
The Department for Education (DfE) Data Access and Engagement Programme (DAEP) has supported a step change in how researchers access and use education administrative data for public good research. The programme aimed to make data access more efficient, expand the availability of research-ready datasets, and strengthen connections between data holders, researchers and policymakers to ensure research addresses important evidence gaps.
Over the course of the programme, DAEP delivered significant improvements to the researcher journey. The number of applications to access DfE data increased by 41.9% between 2023 and 2024, while access processes became more efficient, with the average time taken for bespoke requests reducing from 157.7 days to 123.5 days. The programme also supported the continued development and maintenance of key linked datasets, including Longitudinal Education Outcomes, Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data, Grading and Admissions Data England, and the Ministry of Justice–Department for Education linked dataset.
Alongside improving data access, DAEP strengthened engagement between researchers, policymakers and data users. The programme delivered nine policy-focused roundtables, established the Education Research Funders Forum, and created opportunities for stakeholders to share priorities and identify opportunities for research using linked education data.
The programme’s legacy is a stronger foundation for researchers to use administrative data to answer important questions about children, young people and education. By moving towards a more research-ready data ecosystem, improving access pathways and strengthening links between evidence and policy needs, DAEP has helped enable more timely, relevant and impactful research.
The progress made through DAEP will continue to support ADR England’s ambition to make administrative data easier to discover, access and use, helping researchers generate insights that can inform policy and improve outcomes across society.
Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD): Unlocking linked data to understand children’s lives
ECHILD is a flagship linked administrative data resource, funded by ADR England and developed collaboratively by University College London (UCL), NHS England, the Department for Education and the Office for National Statistics. It links health, education and social care records for around 21 million individuals, enabling researchers to understand how experiences across different areas of children’s lives interact and shape outcomes.
During this phase of the project, ECHILD moved from development into wider use by researchers. The project established systems for secure researcher access through the ONS Secure Research Service, expanded the dataset to include additional health and education records, extended the cohort to include people born from 1984 onwards, and created a mother-child link to enable research into how maternal factors influence children’s outcomes.
The project has also built a growing research community around ECHILD. Since August 2024, 45 projects have been approved through the sublicensing model, with users from 30 external institutions. Through training courses, seminars, user days and guidance resources, the team has supported researchers and analysts to use linked data effectively. ECHILD has generated 64 publications (peer reviewed and preprints), contributed to policy-relevant research on issues including SEND, child poverty and healthcare access, and supported new research funding worth more than £31 million.
ECHILD has placed public engagement and transparency at the centre of its work. More than 25 public involvement and engagement activities have involved parents, carers and community groups, while the ECHILD Lay Advisory Group has helped shape communications and resources. The ECHILD website, user guides and data documentation have helped make the resource more accessible and discoverable for researchers and the public.
The progress made through ECHILD demonstrates the value of linking information across different areas of children’s lives. By enabling researchers to explore relationships between health, education and social care outcomes, ECHILD is helping generate evidence that can inform policy decisions and improve services for children and families.
Looking ahead, ECHILD will continue to support research into children’s health, education and wellbeing, while contributing to ADR England’s wider ambition to strengthen the use of linked administrative data to evaluate what works, for whom and in what circumstances.
