New ADR UK Data Catalogue makes it easier to find and access data

ADR UK has published a new data catalogue for researchers and analysts to discover the growing collection of administrative datasets available across ADR UK’s four national partnerships. Building on the work of existing catalogues, the ADR UK Data Catalogue makes it even easier to find and access data. The platform development has been a cross-partnership endeavour, led by the Office for National Statistics. 

The ADR UK Data Catalogue brings together the metadata (information) already published on each of ADR UK partners’ data catalogues into one comprehensive catalogue. Users can filter the metadata in the catalogue by ADR UK partner, theme, or spatial coverage. For the first time, at the click of a button, it is possible to see the administrative data available in each UK nation and whether, for example, there is a comparable dataset on a specific theme in another nation. 

The data catalogue supports ADR UK’s strategy to make administrative data more discoverable and drive up the use of datasets for public good research. It demonstrates our leadership in the field of administrative data and supports the ADR UK Training and Capacity Building Strategy. Moving forward, the ADR UK partnerships will be publishing an ever-increasing suite of resources such as user guides, explainer videos and synthetic data, which will all be discoverable through the catalogue. As a cross-partnership initiative, the platform development is also helping us to harmonise metadata across the UK; leading toward shared standards and language. 

Dr Emma Gordon, ADR UK Director said: “Across all four ADR UK trusted research environments, there is an ever-expanding suite of administrative datasets that researchers can access. For the first time, all of the information about these datasets is searchable from one site. This is a great achievement, which I hope will drive interest in the data now available to researchers right across the UK.”  

ADR UK will continue to work with the developer Metadataworks to enhance the experience of using the catalogue. Developments already in the pipeline for the platform include interface improvements that highlight media such as webinars, presentations and dashboards, as well as fine-grained search on metadata attributes. In addition, the team is developing the ability to curate and showcase specific collections of datasets to emphasise the value of linked (or linkable) data through the platform.  

Feedback is vital to informing how the catalogue develops. Users are encouraged to fill in the feedback form on the catalogue to tell us about their experiences of using it.  

Visit the ADR UK Data Catalogue.