What is the UK Data Service? A beginner’s guide

1. What is the UK Data Service? A beginner’s guide David Martin Deputy Director ESRC Research Methods Festival St Catherine’s College, Oxford 9 July 2014

2. Overview • welcome and introduction • a brief introduction to the UK Data Service • an infrastructure for social science data access • range of services and data • innovations and developments • brief overview of rest of this session – three “sample” data collections

3. UK Data Service • ESRC has invested substantially in social science datasets, seen as an “infrastructure” for social science • previous investments included ESRC’s Census Programme, Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) and Secure Data Service (SDS) • in summer 2012, all combined into a new integrated UK Data Service • overarching aim: to provide users with seamless and flexible access to data resources to facilitate high-quality social and economic research

4. UK Data Service • place of deposit for data arising from ESRC-funded research • an obligation for award holders to offer data for access by other researchers • includes ReShare self-deposit facility • Census Support provides access to UK census datasets • major collections of UK and international survey datasets • Secure Lab for sensitive data access • training, support and guidance • free to users • different access conditions apply to different datasets, from source

10. Innovations and developments… • Ongoing data acquisitions • Continuous working with national statistical organisations and other key data providers on behalf of the social science research community • Innovation projects – enhancing the service • Data enhancement projects such as Enhancing and Enriching Historic Census Microdata • Integration with ESRC’s new “big data” initiatives such as business and local government data research centres

12. David Martin D.J.Martin@soton.ac.uk