Funding opportunity: Apply for a 2024 ADR UK Research Fellowship using ADR England flagship datasets
Categories: Funding opportunities, ADR UK Research Fellows, ADR England, Office for National Statistics
13 February 2024
ADR UK is inviting funding applications for research fellowships to conduct research and analysis using eligible ADR England flagship datasets. Research fellows will demonstrate the policy impact potential of these datasets by generating insights to address priority research questions.
ADR England flagship datasets are large, de-identified datasets, which enable researchers to develop unprecedented insights into our society at a population level. Covering a diverse range of themes – from education and health to experiences of the justice system – these datasets can be used to answer pressing policy questions, to inform decisions that improve people’s lives.
These datasets are held within the Office for National Statistics Secure Research Service or other ADR UK trusted research environments. For this round of funding, ADR UK has made a number of new and updated datasets available in addition to the existing catalogue. Read more in the ‘About the data’ section.
ADR UK Research Fellowships supported through this funding can be up to 18 months in duration, up to a maximum of £200,000 at full economic cost. ADR UK will fund 80% of full economic costs in line with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)’s funding policy. A range of recorded webinars to support your application are available below.
These fellowships are open to researchers at any career stage. Researchers new to using administrative data are encouraged to apply.
This funding opportunity has a mandatory register of interest stage which closed on 28 March 2024. If you missed this deadline but would still like to apply, please contact: adrfellowships@esrc.ukri.org.
The closing date for full applications is 16:00 on 30 April 2024. More information can be found in the ‘How to apply’ section’. Successful applicants must begin their fellowship projects by 1 October 2024.
Watch an applicant webinar
To hear more about this funding opportunity, including the objectives, expectations, and the support you will receive, watch the opportunity briefing.
If you’re interested in applying for a fellowship working on the themes of crime and justice, and/or children and young people, you can watch the applicant webinars on academic and community partnerships. You'll hear from relevant community stakeholders to inform your application. Find out more in the ‘Academic and community partnerships’ section.
There are dataset-specific webinars available for several of the eligible ADR England flagship datasets. Sign up if you are interested in using one of these in your application:
- Nursing & Midwifery Council Register linked to Census 2021 – England and Wales: Thursday 7 March, 11:00 – 12:00
- Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings linked to PAYE and Self-Assessment data – England, Scotland and Wales: Thursday 7 March, 12:00 – 13:00
- Administrative Data | Agricultural Research Collection – England and Wales: Wednesday 13 March, 10:00 – 11:00.
Find out more about these datasets and the others in scope for this opportunity below.
Webinars will be recorded and published on this page for those unable to join.
About the data and associated research priorities
You must use an ADR England Flagship dataset for your fellowship. Some of these datasets have associated research priorities which you should refer to in your application. The current range of eligible ADR England flagship datasets are:
New: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings linked to PAYE and Self-Assessment data - England, Scotland and Wales
This dataset links the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) to Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and Self-Assessment data provided by His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC). The linkage of ASHE with the PAYE data helps to address information gaps concerning changes in the labour market within the 12-month intervals between ASHE surveys.
This has the potential to enhance our understanding of earnings and labour market transitions in Britain. Linking ASHE to PAYE and Self-Assessment data allows us to understand better a person’s whole interaction with the labour market.
To learn more about how you could use this dataset for an ADR UK Research Fellowship, watch the webinar below.
New: Administrative Data | Agricultural Research Collection – England and Wales
Projects using AD|ARC must use the English data, which is available in the ONS Secure Research Service. They may also choose to use the Welsh data in the SAIL Databank.
The AD|ARC (Administrative Data | Agricultural Research Collection) datasets link information on farming activities with de-identified data about the people in farm households. The datasets also include three control groups of non-farming individuals living in similarly rural areas.
Research using the data will enable better understanding of the demographic, health, education and economic characteristics of households associated with different types and sizes of farm business. This will provide new insights for decision makers to improve agricultural and rural policies and enhance the wellbeing of farmers and their households.
To hear more about how you could use this dataset for an ADR UK Research Fellowship, watch the below applicant webinar.
Updated: Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data – England
The Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD) database includes linked records for around 20 million children and young people, which will be used to better understand how education affects children’s health and how health affects children’s education.
The ECHILD database contains the National Pupil Database (including data on pupil and school characteristics, educational outcomes, and social care) linked to healthcare data. This includes Hospital Episode Statistics (admitted patient care, A&E, and outpatient care), birth notifications, maternity services data, mental health data and community services data.
For this round of funding, this dataset has been updated to include a mother-baby link. This enables researchers to investigate the effects of maternal exposures on children’s outcomes.
Read the research priorities for this dataset.
Watch a recorded applicant webinar about using this dataset for an ADR UK Research Fellowship. This webinar was recorded for a previous round of funding so please disregard any dates mentioned.
Updated: Growing Up in England
ADR UK, the ONS and the Department for Education are working together to make better use of existing data about children and young people in England. The Growing Up in England dataset will enable a more comprehensive understanding of how factors such as household composition and geography shape outcomes. This will allow researchers to shine light on what does and doesn’t work in supporting children and young people to thrive and give policymakers valuable evidence for developing services that work better for all.
Growing up in England is formed of the Feasibility All Education Dataset for England which includes the National Pupil Database, Individualised Learner Records and further education data. This has been linked to the 2011 Census which provides de-identified household information, child-level individual characteristics, and geographical data. Additional datasets have been joined to the feasibility All Education Dataset for England, including English School Census, Children in Need and Children Looked After.
For this round of funding, this dataset has been updated to include additional years of children in need and children looked after data.
Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings linked to 2011 Census – England and Wales
The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), carried out in April each year, is the most comprehensive source of information on the structure and distribution of earnings in the UK. ASHE provides information about the levels, distribution and make-up of earnings and paid hours worked for employees in all industries and occupations. The census is undertaken by the Office for National Statistics every 10 years and gives us a picture of all the people and households in England and Wales.
Linking these datasets allows for insight into the dynamics of wage and employment issues, and how characteristics such as gender, disability, and ethnicity influence these.
Training opportunities and recorded webinars related to this dataset are available on the Wage and Employment Dynamics project website.
Data First: Cross-Justice System – England and Wales
This dataset connects Ministry of Justice data from the civil and family courts with different areas of the criminal justice system. This presents an unprecedented opportunity to understand cross-cutting questions about the overlaps and intersections between users of services in different justice jurisdictions.
Data is available on an individual person- and case- level, from the start of criminal prosecutions in the magistrates’ courts and Crown Court, through to periods spent in prison custody or under supervision of the probation service. Additionally, data is available on adults and children involved in family court cases, including those related to child custody, care arrangements, divorce or adoption, as well as people (and companies) involved in civil cases as claimants or defendants. This will enable insights on end-to-end user journeys across the criminal, family and civil justice systems.
Data First: Family Court linked to Cafcass and Census 2021 – England and Wales
The Data First family court – Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) linked 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.
Read the research priorities for this dataset.
Watch a recorded applicant webinar about using this dataset for an ADR UK Research Fellowship. This webinar was recorded for a previous round of funding so please disregard any dates mentioned.
Grading and Admissions Data for England
Grading and Admissions Data for England (GRADE) is a linked, de-identified administrative dataset including data from Ofqual, the Department for Education, and UCAS. It allows accredited researchers to conduct independent research on the educational, assessment, and admission systems in England.
GRADE covers the period 2017-2022. This allows in-depth research and evaluation of grading arrangements in 2020, when exams were cancelled and alternative arrangements were put in place due to the Covid-19 pandemic. More broadly, the dataset enables research to enhance the quality of the assessment system and produce evidence to inform future education policy, particularly around the fairness of methods for measuring students’ attainment. GRADE also enables research into the impact of the pandemic on the education system.
Longitudinal Education Outcomes – England
The Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset is a world-leading data product created by the Department for Education. It contains de-identified information on the characteristics, education, employment, benefits, and earnings of members of the British public. This is a unique source of information, with the potential to provide transformative insights and evidence on the longer-term labour market outcomes and educational pathways of (currently) around 38 million individuals.
The purpose of the LEO dataset is to enable transformational insights about pathways within and after education, to enhance the life chances of current and future learners through the enhancement of evidence-based decision making.
Read the research priorities for this dataset.
Watch a recorded applicant webinar about using this dataset for an ADR UK Research Fellowship. This webinar was recorded for a previous round of funding so please disregard any dates mentioned.
Ministry of Justice & Department for Education linked dataset – England
The Ministry of Justice & Department for Education linked dataset allows analysis to understand links between childhood characteristics, educational outcomes and (re)offending. The dataset includes data from prison, courts, Police National Computer, National Pupil Database, looked-after-children and children in need. It covers variables such as demographics, offending data, school exclusions, and all episodes of children in care.
Analysis of this data will help develop the evidence base on understanding the relationships between educational and criminal justice outcomes and the drivers of offending. It will assist in identifying populations that require support through early educational interventions and evaluating interventions to understand whether they are effective.
ADR UK is keen to pilot the use of the Integrated Data Service (IDS), and so also encourages applications to use the following dataset:
New: Nursing and Midwifery Council Register linked to Census 2021 – England and Wales
This dataset brings together the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)’s UK-wide register with the Census 2021 for England and Wales. The dataset enables cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis from the register of nurses, associate nurses, and midwives. The data is formed from information provided by nurses, associate nurses, and midwives when they first enter the register, and then every three years when they revalidate.
A further dataset provides indication as to the date at which leavers left the register between 2018 and 2021. These datasets have been linked to the Census 2021 for England and Wales, which enables analysis of demographic, geographic and social dimensions of these professions, and implications for entry and retention.
This dataset will be accessed within the IDS. Delivered in partnership with ONS, the IDS hosts a range of de-identified data within a state of the art cloud-based platform. The vision for IDS is that all hosted data will be indexed and linkable to all other datasets, where data owners agree, improving ease of access and analysis for research purposes. Find out more about the Integrated Data Service.
This dataset has been made available through a partnership between the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the ONS.
To hear more about how you could use this dataset for an ADR UK Research Fellowship, watch the below applicant webinar.
Academic and community partnerships
ADR UK recognises the value of close collaboration with research project stakeholders. We encourage you to consider how you might embed partnership working into your fellowship. For example, this might include building relationships with key organisations that could derive public benefit from your research insights, in order to boost the potential and future impact of the data, research and your engagement.
If you would like your application to be informed by organisations representing the interests of crime and justice system users, and/or children and young people, then watch our webinars. You will have the chance to hear from a variety of community stakeholders about their organisation’s priorities and how your research outputs could support their work.
Watch the webinars
Webinar 1
This webinar features representatives of children and young people:
- British Association of Social Workers
- Catch-22
- The Magpie Project
- National Children's Bureau
- WellChild
Webinar 2
This webinar features representatives of crime and justice system users:
Webinar 3
This webinar also features representatives of crime and justice system users:
Eligibility and funding
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 more details.
These ADR UK Research Fellowships are open to researchers at any career stage. Early career researchers and researchers new to using administrative data are encouraged to apply. They should include strong mentoring and capacity building plans as part of their fellowship to support their research goals.
Fellowship structure and expectations
These ADR UK research fellowships are up to 18 months in total:
Research phase (up to 15 months): maximum one 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 and development phase (up to three months): maximum 0.5 FTE
Activities during this phase should be dedicated toward building on the momentum of your research phase, maximising opportunities for knowledge exchange and policy impact. Wider activities may also contribute to your own development and support the wider research community using administrative data.
Funding available
The full economic cost of your project can be up to £200,000. ADR UK will fund 80% of the 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.
Key dates
Applications open | 13 February 2024 |
1 March 2024 (various timeslots available) | |
4 March 2024, 12:00 – 13:00 | |
Applicant webinar: Nursing and Midwifery Council Register linked to Census 2021 | 7 March 2024, 11:00 – 12:00 |
Applicant webinar: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings linked to PAYE and Self-Assessment data | 7 March 2024, 12:00 – 13:00 |
Applicant webinar: Administrative Data | Agricultural Research Collection | 13 March 2024, 10:00 – 11:00 |
Register of interest deadline (mandatory) | 28 March 2024, 16:00 |
Applications close | 30 April 2024, 16:00 |
Panel meeting | July 2024 |
Fixed start date | 1 October 2024 |
How to apply
This funding opportunity has a mandatory register of interest stage which closed on 28 March 2024. If you missed this deadline but would still like to apply, please contact: adrfellowships@esrc.ukri.org.
Applications must be submitted by 16:00 on 30 April 2024. For full details about the assessment criteria, fellowship objectives and how to submit your application, read the opportunity listing on the UK Research and Innovation Funding Finder:
You can also visit the ADR UK learning hub for tips on applying and watch the video below on how to write a successful fellowship application:
Applicants are reminded to allow plenty of time for the necessary checks and procedures within your host organisation when preparing your full application. You should be sure to leave time for your organisation's research office to approve the submission on UKRI's Funding Service system before the application deadline. Late applications will not be accepted.