ESRC data and methods

The ESRC funds a range of data and methods services to support research and study.  It provides resources needed to access high quality socio-economic data and to develop research skills. These services are:

• The UK Data Service: provides access to a collection of over 6,000 high quality socio-economic data sets.  It supports data users and works to improve data management.
• The Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) manages four British cohort studies: the 1958 National Child Development Study, the 1970 British Cohort Study, Next Steps, and the Millennium Cohort Study.
• CLOSER supports the use of longitudinal research. Key resources include reading lists and summaries of findings, and a search portal to help find out what data has been collected across all nine studies in the CLOSER partnership.
• Understanding Society is a major longitudinal survey of around 40,000 UK households. The site contains information on the survey, as well as research articles, reports and policy briefings based on this survey.
• The Administrative Data Research Network enables accredited researchers to securely access de-identified administrative data for research that has potential benefit to society.
• Census and Administrative data LongitudinaL Studies Hub enables researchers to access census based longitudinal data selected from census records over time as well as linked material from other administrative datasets (such as health data).
• The National Centre for Research Methods supports researchers in developing their research skills.  It hosts an extensive database of research methods training courses.

Each service provides support and delivers training, including joint training and can be contacted if you are interested in bespoke training.

Author: Jo Wathan, UK Data Service (ukdstraining@manchester.ac.uk).