Office for National Statistics to replace the Research Accreditation Service in April
Categories: ADR England, Office for National Statistics
4 March 2025
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has provided dates for when it will replace the Research Accreditation Service. There will be a short period of closure of accreditation services in April to allow the migration of data between the old and new services.
Last month the Office for National Statistics wrote to all accredited researchers and users of the ONS Secure Research Service, about upcoming plans to replace the Research Accreditation Service. The People & Projects Service and Project Accreditation Service and will provide a new route for project and researcher accreditation when they are introduced later this year.
Upcoming dates for your diary
In preparation for the switch to the new services, there will be a brief period where the Research Accreditation Service is closed to migrate data to the two new services.
- No new applications can be started or submitted in the ONS Research Accreditation Service from Friday 4 April
- The two new accreditation new services will be available from Tuesday 29 April.
During the period when Research Accreditation Service is closed, users will not be able to start accredited researcher applications, new project applications or request changes to live projects.
Users with in-progress applications that have not been completed before Friday 4 April will be contacted directly to progress their application.
Read more about the two services
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People & Projects Service (PPS): This service will serve as the accreditation and project management system for all IDS users. It will also take over researcher accreditation for SRS users. It is integrated into the infrastructure of the IDS. By being developed in-house, this service eliminates dependency on third-party systems.
- Project Accreditation Service for SRS (PASS): This service will take over all project application functionality for Secure Research Service users. It has been developed separately to meet their different user needs.
Project changes and new applications
For more information about changes to existing projects or submitting a new one, please read the communication from ONS.
Changes to Safe Researcher Training and ID checks
The migration to these new systems provides an opportunity to review existing accreditation processes.
ONS is currently working on changes to the booking method for Safe Researcher Training, with an aim to provide a streamlined solution for those going through the accreditation process. To further enhance the ‘Safe people’ aspect of the Five Safes framework, ONS plans to introduce an ID checking process as part of researcher accreditation.
Further details on these changes will be shared before implementation, but it is envisaged that these will only impact newly accredited researchers, or researchers who are obtaining re-accreditation after expiry.
Next steps
ONS will communicate further to all users later this month. Users with an active project, an in-progress researcher accreditation, or project application for the SRS or IDS, will receive specific communications closer to the migration.
