You may have seen our communications on Tuesday 7 March about the introduction of the Integrated Data Service (IDS). This was an important message for all users of the Secure Research Service (SRS), both past and present. Please do take the time to read this if you have a moment.
We are committed to providing regular and timely updates on how the transition is progressing for all interested parties, so look out for these in the newsletter over the coming months.
Support the SRS - Annual user experience survey 2023
There is still time to complete this short survey and provide anonymous feedback on the service we provide.
As we look to develop the future of data access, your feedback is valued now more than ever.
The survey will close on Tuesday 21 March.
If you would like to read more, please revisit our previous communications
Regular maintenance to the SRS – Researcher update
Following some recent enquiries, this is an update on the weekly and monthly timetable of scheduled maintenance, which is carried out to keep the SRS running smoothly for researchers.
To allow your code to run effectively and without interruption, please avoid running your analysis during these times.
Weekly maintenance
All servers are rebooted between 07:00 and 07.30 every Monday morning and the SRS will not be accessible during these times
Monthly maintenance
Updates are applied on the final Saturday of every month between 07:00 and 11:00. The SRS will not be accessible for the duration of this maintenance.
Dates for monthly maintenance 2023
- Saturday 25 March
- Saturday 29 April
- Saturday 27 May
- Saturday 24 June
- Saturday 29 July
- Saturday 26 August
- Saturday 30 September
- Saturday 28 October
- Saturday 25 November
- Saturday 30 December
SRS Metadata Catalogue retrospective
Since launching the SRS Metadata Catalogue in September 2022, we have been able to gather new insights into what researchers are searching for, as well as the dataset records that have been viewed most frequently.
‘Growing up in England’ was by far the most popular search term over the past six months, accounting for nearly a quarter of all the top 10 searches, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that ‘Growing Up in England Wave 1’ comes in as the second most viewed dataset record. Similarly, the popularity of ‘business’ as a search term corresponds with six business datasets making the top 10 most viewed metadata records.
The last two appearing in the top 10 most popular datasets – the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the Annual Population Survey – have been used by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) in a major evaluation of the impacts of the National Living Wage (NLW) on employment and incomes. Read our case study of the month to find out more. To hear Senior Research Economist Xiaowei Xu from IFS discussing this research as part of the ONS Research Excellence series on Thursday 30 March, 11:00-12:00, register now.
Top 10 searches
- Growing Up in England
- Business
- Health
- Education
- IDBR
- Labour Force Survey Household - UK
- Covid-19 Infection Survey - UK
- Longitudinal Education Outcomes
- Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings - UK
- Census
Source: Google Analytics
Top 10 viewed datasets
- 2011 Census linked to Benefits and Income - England and Wales
- Growing Up in England Wave 1
- Annual Acquisition and Disposals of Capital Assets Survey - UK
- Annual Business Survey - UK
- Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings linked to 2011 Census - England and Wales
- Annual Business Inquiry
- Annual Population Survey - UK
- Annual Foreign Direct Investment Survey - UK
- Linked Trade-in-Goods/Inter-Departmental Business Register - UK
- Public Health Research Database - England and Wales
Source: Google Analytics
Over the past few months we have shared with you feedback from our 2022 Annual user experience survey. The survey unearthed several questions about how processes in the SRS work, and why they work in the way that they do. The SRS Explained Series aims to give some context behind the inner workings of the SRS, describe our processes and procedures in detail, and highlight to users how they can utilise the SRS in the most efficient way to continue their important research.
Data Curation
The SRS Data Curation team manages the end-to-end process to bring core datasets into the ONS Secure Research Service. We source new stand-alone datasets from government departments, charities and commercial sources, and curate innovative linked data assets on behalf of Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK). Examples of datasets we have worked to ingest into the SRS are: Wage Dynamics, Longitudinal Educational Outcomes, Ministry of Justice Data First suite, Growing Up in England and the Youth Endowment Fund. We have also begun work with Health Data Research UK to bring in health data to the SRS, such as the Virus Watch dataset.
We work closely with Data Owners to scope the project and dataset requirements, and to complete legal governance and formal agreements. We also collaborate with other ONS SRS departments to ensure compliance with metadata requirements, linkage requests and project applications.
We are an ADR UK funded department and liaise regularly with ADR UK colleagues both centrally and across the Devolved Administrations to meet our joint goals. We provide support for ADR UK Fellowship calls, acting as a go-to between the various involved ONS departments, ADR UK and the research fellows.
We regularly engage with researchers and provide subject matter expertise on data, we support ADR UK fellowship researchers with their projects beyond the dataset ingest.
We promote the SRS across Government and Academia at conferences and workshops, and we work with SRS Engagement highlighting and advertising datasets that are new or upcoming to be made available in the SRS.
If you would like to get in touch, our email address is: adrcuration@ons.gov.uk
ADR UK conference 2023 in partnership with ONS |
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We recently wrote previous communications to you regarding the ADR UK conference 2023 in partnership with ONS, happening 14 to 16 November 2023, in Birmingham, England. The call for abstracts in now open on the theme ‘Public data for resilience and inclusion. Using administrative data to inform policy and practice in challenging times.’ This is a call to all UK researchers, data scientists and civil service analysts and those working with administrative data for public good research, to submit an abstract and have an opportunity to join us at the conference and present their work. Find out all you need to know on the conference website. Please note the abstract submission deadline is Monday 17 April and we recommend applications are submitted as soon as possible, as we may need to close early if the abstract limit is reached. All the criteria is on the dedicated abstract submission and pre-conference workshop pages.
Funding opportunities |
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Operationalising the scaled production and sharing of synthetic data
ADR UK and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are inviting applications from individuals or teams to explore the use and potential of synthetic data. The grant holder will evaluate the use of low-fidelity synthetic versions of datasets held securely within UK trusted research environments.
The deadline for applications is Tuesday 9 May 2023.
Read more on the ADR UK website.
UKRI policy fellowships 2023
As part of the UKRI policy fellowships 2023, ADR UK and ESRC are co-funding two Fellowships to join the No. 10 Data Science Team (10DS) this October and use administrative data for public good research.
The deadline for applications is Thursday 20 April 2023.
Read more on the ADR UK website.
ADR England Research Community Catalysts
ADR UK, in collaboration with other co-funders, is inviting applications for three ADR England Research Community Catalyst Awards. Recipients of these awards will develop self-sustaining communities of researchers and wider stakeholders to advance administrative data research for public good. This will include driving up the use of ADR England flagship datasets.
The deadline for applications is Tuesday 6 June 2023.
Read more on the ADR UK website.
Bank of England - Decision Maker Panel UK
The Decision Maker Panel (DMP) is a survey of UK businesses and includes data on businesses’ recent performance and expectations, measures of uncertainty and data on the estimated impact of Brexit and COVID-19.
The DMP has generated a number of research outputs which have later been published in academic journals, working paper series and blogs. The research has also been summarised in presentations delivered within international conferences and seminars.
The panel is designed to be representative of the population of UK businesses and draws information from Financial Officers in UK companies operating in a broad range of industries.
To find out more, please visit the Metadata Catalogue.
UKRI fund five innovative research projects
Over £2 million has been awarded by UKRI to fund a series of Driver Projects as part of the DARE UK (Data and Analytics Research Environments UK) programme. The projects will take a leading role in informing the design of what will be a UK-wide network of trusted research environments (TREs). They will explore solutions to developing more standardised approaches to running and governing TREs, so that data can be more easily analysed across them in a safe, secure and efficient way.
Please visit the DARE UK website to find out more.
Dataset of the Month
Vacancy Survey
The Vacancy Survey (VS) is a regular survey of businesses, which provides an accurate and comprehensive measure of the total number of vacancies across the economy. Data from the survey are published monthly and is used by the Treasury and Bank of England as a valuable indicator of labour demand.
The survey asks a single question: how many job vacancies did businesses have in total (on a specified date) for which they were actively seeking recruits from outside their organisation. Online questionnaires are sent to a sample of approximately 6000 businesses every month.
The survey covers all sectors of the economy and all industries in England, Scotland and Wales (Great Britain) apart from employment agencies (to avoid double-counting of vacancies) and agriculture, forestry and fishing (because of the disproportionate cost involved as these industries mainly consist of very small businesses with few vacancies). Northern Ireland businesses are not approached because of the risk of overlap with other surveys conducted by Northern Ireland departments. In the labour market statistical bulletin, official estimates for the number of vacancies across the UK are derived by weighting up the data for Great Britain using employment estimates.
Case Study of the Month
The impacts of nationwide Minimum Wage changes
The Minimum Wage is a key policy lever affecting millions of workers across the UK. How do minimum wage increases affect workers’ wages, and their overall household incomes? A research study using secure data found limited employment effects, but significant ‘spillovers’ to higher paid workers with middle income households doing the best out of a minimum wage rise.
To read the case study in full, please visit the ADR UK website.
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