The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has announced two major funding boosts for the collection of social science data.
It has provided £100 million to Understanding Society, the longitudinal study on UK households, and £35 million for the UK Data Service, which provides social and economic data to researchers, teachers and policy makers.
ESRC executive chair, Stian Westlake, said: "The substantial, long term investment we are making today will provide researchers and policymakers with high quality data to inform research that improves people’s lives across the country.
“Understanding Society is one of the largest long term panel studies of households in the world. It provides researchers and policymakers with a deep and broad understanding of the causes and consequences of social, economic and cultural changes in people’s lives in the UK.”
The group is led by the Institute for Social and Economic Research and the University of Essex. ESRC said the funding will enable it to continue collecting data on the existing 25,000 households for 10 years, set up subgroups on ethnic minority and Celtic populations, and collected additional biological data to examine health changes over time.
Access and support
The money for the UK Data Service will ensure continued access for users to more than 7,000 datasets, support several nationally critical data resources, and support existing partners.
Westlake said: “The UK Data Service is an international leader in the technical development of digital standards, data curation, research data management, data skills training and impact. It is a vital part of the UK’s research infrastructure, and support users from 146 countries.”
