In partnership with Administrative Data Research (ADR UK) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the Wage and Employment Dynamics Team at the University of the West of England (UWE) hosted the Better Data, Better Research, Better Policy event on the 21st of May 2024.
The aim of the event was to raise awareness of the new, large-scale, linked, administrative datasets that have been made available for research, while also giving delegates the chance to connect with others to jointly explore research ideas that can be addressed using the new datasets.
The event was oversubscribed, with numbers limited to 50. Delegates attended from each of the UWE colleges, local universities, national local and policy makers, as well as the private sector.
The event was opened by Professor Andrew Simpson (Dean and Head of Bristol Business School). In the morning, ADR UK introduced the various new datasets which were available, ONS described how researchers could access these sensitive and confidential datasets within their Trusted Research Environment, while the Nuffield Foundation identified sources of funding which are available to support research projects using these datasets.
In the afternoon academics from UWE (Damian Whittard and Felix Ritchie) and the University of Bristol (George Leckie and Ludivine Garside) presented research they had recently produced using some of the available datasets – the research covered diverse topics including the value of green jobs; domestic abuse proceedings in the family court; predicted versus achieved grades for university admission; and low pay and labour mobility.
In the final session delegates joined thematic groups (world of work; crime and justice; children and young people; climate and sustainability; health and wellbeing) to identify potential research topics/questions which the new datasets could address. The rich discussions encouraged multidisciplinary teams to emerge that could tackle these topics – we look forward to seeing the research outputs which may be generated as a result!