Welcome
Welcome to our April Newsletter.
Following the success of our Perspectives on Engagement and Impact event, we are looking forward to hosting further events for the benefit of people we support in the sector.
In March, we held the first of our big annual conferences – the Crime Surveys User Conference. This event featured many high-profile speakers, such as Greg Rose, a Senior Research at the ONS (Office For National Statistics), who shared insights into why the crime rate in England and Wales has continued to fall since the mid-1990s.
The other User Conferences we will host over the next few months include the Health Studies User Conference, the Family Finance Surveys User Conference and the Labour Force and Annual Population Surveys User Conference.
I am also pleased to update you on further significant developments at the UK Data Service, including our new partnership on Longitudinal Population Studies with UK LLC; the launch of our recent collaboration with the Department for Education; the upcoming release of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry's Every Story Matters exercise into our collection; and the publication of our latest Annual Report.
I hope you enjoy reading this newsletter and I look forward to catching up with many of you at other important events over the next few months, including CESSDA’s 50th Anniversary Conference, IASSIST 2026, the Dataverse Community Meeting 2026 and the Digital Footprints Conference 2026.
Regards,
Steve McEachern,
Director, UK Data Service.
To get in touch please email: comms@ukdataservice.ac.uk.
|
Search our data catalogue for further information about the datasets in our collection.
Users can also filter our online news stories to find the latest datasets and editions added to the data catalogue.
Additionally, you can follow us on Bluesky and LinkedIn to keep up-to-date on when the latest datasets are released.
|
The lived experiences of around 58,000 people, collected by the UK Covid-19 Inquiry's Every Story Matters public engagement exercise, will be made available via the UK Data Service. Accredited researchers, including experts from government and academia, will be granted restricted access in a secure and controlled virtual environment, for research purposes only.
Ben Connah, Secretary to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, said: "This is a major milestone for Every Story Matters - the largest listening exercise ever conducted by a UK public Inquiry. I am delighted that the UK Data Service has recognised how important the pandemic experiences shared through Every Story Matters are. I trust that these stories will be of value to researchers following the Inquiry’s closure."
|
We’re pleased to announce a new project to help maximise the visibility and long‑term value of data from Longitudinal Population Studies, which follow the lives of the same individuals or households over an extended period of time. Many of these studies will be of significant use to researchers during the process of new government policies being designed.
The initiative will enable UK-based Longitudinal Population Studies to apply to join UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) and/or the UK Data Service at no cost.
|
Save the date
Health Studies User Conference 2026
25 June, UCL, London (and online)
Are you interested in research using health-related data? Want to know what the future holds for population health surveys? Or are you curious how large-scale surveys are used in research, policymaking and monitoring? Join us on 25 June to hear from data producers and data users.
Family Finance Surveys User Conference 2026
9 July, Friends House London (and online)
Are you interested in research on family finances? Do you want to learn about the latest developments in family finance data from UK social surveys? This free annual conference will share updates on the development of family finance surveys and showcase research using the data. |
|
|
|
We’re pleased to announce that the UK Data Service has been shortlisted in the “Data Partnership of the Year” and “Not-For-Profit of the Year” categories for the British Data Awards 2026! The winners will be announced in a ceremony at the Brewery in London on 20 May.
|
|
|
The Department for Education (DfE) and the UK Data Archive have strengthened their long-standing collaboration through a new framework agreement. This agreement streamlines the process for depositing and sharing new datasets via the UK Data Service.
|
|
|
|
|
IASSIST 2026 (the International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology) is dedicated to the theme of Championing Data. This year's event will be a virtual conference between 2 and 5 June, with many experts from the UK Data Service providing presentations.
|
|
|
CESSDA (the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives) will celebrate its 50th Anniversary this year with a conference in Bergen, Norway, between 15 and 18 June. The UK Data Service will lead some of the sessions, with a particular focus on linking standards across data repositories around the world.
|
|
|
|
|
This latest release of the Millennium Cohort Study covers the Age 23 sweep, which includes information collected from more than 9,700 study participants between 2023 and 2025. The study was conducted by the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies.
|
|
|
On 11 March, we were pleased to host the 2026 Crime Surveys User Conference in collaboration with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Scottish Government. The conference featured an insightful mix of presentations from researchers who have used data from UK crime surveys.
|
|
|
|
|
The UK Data Service is contributing to MetaCurate-ML, a new pilot project to help ensure data and metadata can be understood and used effectively by both people and machines. It is led by CLOSER and involves colleagues from the University of Surrey’s Computer Science Department, and the Scottish Centre for Social Research.
|
|
|
Forthcoming training sessions
UK Data Service drop-in sessions
Are you working on a project using data and want to get advice and help from UK Data Service experts? Come along to one of our free online drop-in sessions:
UK Data Service introductory training series: Spring 2026
Our free online training series continues with:
- Introduction to anonymisation techniques for social sciences research data, 7 May, 10.00 - 11.30
- Getting started with secondary analysis, 11 May, 10.00 - 11.30
- Introduction to effective and practical research data management, 15 May, 10.00 - 11.30
- Best practices for documenting social sciences research data, 20 May, 10.00 - 11.30
- Introduction to time diary data, 4 June, 13.00 - 16.30
Other free online workshops:
|
On 11 February, the UK Data Service Impact team hosted an Early Career Researchers’ event: Perspectives on Engagement and Impact. More than 60 people joined us for thoughtful conversations about what it really means to share research with stakeholders, as well as a series of workshops and panel discussions exploring practical techniques for doing so effectively.
As Tom Pottrill, a stakeholder attending the event, said:
“What an excellent day! Brilliant engagement and lots of interesting discussions. These events aren't always straightforward to pull off with such effect – congratulations on a resounding success!”
Perspectives on "Perspectives on Engagement and Impact"
Get a flavour of the different perspectives attendees encountered in our recent blog post, or see what the stakeholders had to say:
|
John Sanderson, Deputy Director of the UK Data Service, reminded us that it’s easy to overlook the scale and impact of our infrastructure. Recent posts highlighted this:
|
|
Media watch: The UK Data Service in the news
|
|
|
from theconversation.com - 2 April 2026
"In the same week that a new archbishop of Canterbury was installed, YouGov admitted that a poll suggesting there was a “quiet revival” of Christianity was a dud. It had been inflated by fraudulent results and should be ignored."
This article references data which is available in the UK Data Service collection: British Social Attitudes Survey.
|
from bbc.co.uk - 19 February 2026
"Official figures on the number of children living in poverty in the UK are expected to be revised down over concerns they have not been accurately reflecting household income."
This article references data which is available in the UK Data Service collection: Family Resources Survey
|
|
from bbc.co.uk- 4 April 2026
"When Mel Brooker was working for a well-known website in her late 20s, she says male colleagues – including some she was managing – would openly comment on what she was wearing."
This article references data which is available in the UK Data Service collection: Annual Population Survey
|
from www.financialpost.com/ - 24 March 2026
Alexandra Horwood: "In my early days as an adviser, I worked with a client who had spent more than four decades in a demanding professional role, often working long weeks. His financial plan worked exactly as expected when he finally retired, but what surprised him was everything else."
This article references data which is available in the UK Data Service collection: Labour Force Survey
|
|
|
We would like to know when you successfully publish research informed by data you have accessed via the Service. Contact our Impact team if you are interested in contributing to the Data Impact blog or working with us to develop an impact case study.
For regular updates on new blogs, case studies and news stories, subscribe to our UK Data Service JiscMail. (You need a Jisc Mail account to do this).
|
|
|
UK Data Service, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park
Colchester, Essex, CO4 3SQ.
© Copyright 2026 University of Essex.
Created by UK Data Archive, UK Data Service.
You are receiving this email because you have subscribed to news from the UK Data Service. |
|
|
|
|
