Funding opportunity: ADR UK Research Fellowships using ADR England flagship datasets 2023

The ECHILD research database includes linked health, education and social care data for around 20 million children born from 1984 onwards. It can be used to better understand how education affects children’s health and how health affects children’s education.

Read the research priorities for ECHILD.

Professor Katie Harron, Co-Principal Investigator for ECHILD, said: “ADR UK Research Fellowships are a really exciting opportunity for researchers to get to know ECHILD and to learn the skills needed for working with linked longitudinal administrative datasets. ECHILD has already been used to generate policy relevant evidence to support the health and education of children and families and we’re looking forward to seeing the new research projects to further this work that will be proposed under this call.”

Data First is an ambitious data-linking, sharing and research programme led by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and funded by ADR UK. The latest release from Data First is the creation of a cross-justice system linked dataset. This new linked dataset brings together data from the civil and family courts with different areas of the criminal justice system for the first time.

The dataset provides researchers with a unique opportunity to study interactions across the justice system, and to deliver vital evidence on individual journeys across the justice system.

Read the research priorities for the Data First cross-justice system linked dataset.

Richard Price, Director General for Performance, Strategy and Analysis in MoJ, said: “These new research fellowships provide a fantastic opportunity for academic researchers to work in partnership with MoJ and ADR UK, to make the best use of the flagship linked and anonymised datasets we have shared under Data First. This will enable policy-relevant research that delivers powerful new insights about how people interact across the justice system and with other public services.”

The Ministry of Justice Data First family court - Cafcass linked dataset will soon be available linked to Census 2021 in the SAIL Databank. Cafcass stands for Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. The de-identified dataset contains information on adoption, divorce, family law act, public law and private law cases, and their legal outcomes in England and Wales. Public law cases include local authority intervention to protect children, such as care or supervision proceedings, and private law cases include parental disputes concerning the upbringing of children, for example arrangements for contact, access or custody. The

updated datasets bring the family court data up to March 2023 and the Cafcass data up to January 2023.  The Census data has been provided in full for England and Wales to SAIL Databank with the exception of travel to work and sexual orientation information. Full census documentation is expected soon and we will publish more information about the linkage – sign up for

updates. In the meantime, we encourage applicants to discuss any planned use of Census 2021 with SAIL to confirm feasibility.  

Read the research priorities for Data First: Family court linked to Cafcass and Census 2021 - England and Wales.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) & Department for Education (DfE) linked dataset provides de-identified data on the childhood characteristics and education outcomes of young people linked to data on their interactions with the criminal justice system. This dataset has been

updated to include Police National Computer records up to 2021.

Read the research priorities for the Ministry of Justice & Department for Education linked dataset - England.

 

The Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset provides unparalleled insights into educational experiences and labour market outcomes of the English public. It combines the education, earnings and benefits data records of the whole population from 1985 onward.

The second iteration of LEO will soon be available to accredited researchers via the ONS Secure Research Service. This includes the addition of industry data, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) data and Covid-19 data among other valuable

updates.

Read the research priorities for Longitudinal Education Outcomes - England.

We welcome proposals from individual researchers from eligible research organisations, in line with ESRC’s standard eligibility criteria. See the ESRC research funding guide for further details. 

Early career researchers can apply and must have a mentor. ADR UK is running a pilot mentoring scheme alongside this opportunity – find out how we can support you to find a suitable mentor.

For this funding opportunity, joint applications on a job-share basis are permitted. If your application is a proposed job share, please state this where relevant in your application.

Researchers new to administrative data are encouraged to apply. They should include strong mentoring and/or capacity building plans as part of their fellowship to support their research goals.

Fellowship structure and expectations

This ADR UK Research Fellowship is up to 18 months in total:

Research phase (up to 15 months): Maximum 1 full time equivalent (FTE).

This should cover typical research project stages including project set up, analysis and delivery of the research aims of your project.

Impact & development phase (up to 3 months): Maximum 0.5 FTE 

This phase should be dedicated toward building on the activities and momentum from your research phase and maximising opportunities for knowledge exchange, impact and development opportunities. Activities during this phase should enhance the research goals and policy impact of your work. Wider activities may also contribute to your own development and support the wider research community using administrative data. 

Funding

Funding is available for a maximum of £175,000 at 100% full economic cost. We encourage a minimum time commitment of 0.6 full-time equivalent for the core research phase, although we do accept fellowship proposals below this suggested time commitment.