Welcome
Over the last few months we have built on many of our key partnerships to kickstart a wide range of new projects that will make it easier for researchers to use our data even more effectively in the long-term.
We recently attended the kick-off meeting for the Horizon Europe funded AI4Social+ project, which we are working on with 14 partners across Europe. During the next phase, we will collaborate with the consortium to build trusted new AI tools, resources and standards, for the benefit of the scientific community around the world, in particular the social sciences.
We are looking forward to developing these ideas further when we meet with our partners at the Barcelona Super Computing Centre in November.
Alongside these developments, our plans for the CDIF4EOSC project, also funded by Horizon Europe, are continuing to develop well with CESSDA. This project aims to break down barriers between research disciplines, making it easier for the data within these disciplines to be accessed by researchers.
In the rest of this newsletter below, you will find out more about the other activities we have been involved with, such as helping to shape the UKRI's new research data policy, the release of our new Computational Social Sciences modules for researchers, our latest Annual Report and the launch of our new QUADRA-AI project.
This project involves developing new AI-enabled tools to improve the discovery access and resue of qualitative data.
Regards,
Steve McEachern,
Director, UK Data Service.
To get in touch please email: comms@ukdataservice.ac.uk.
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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.
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We have published our Annual Report 2025–26, Beyond 10,000: Shaping the future of research data. The report reflects a significant year for the Service, including the growth of the collection beyond 10,000 datasets and the launch of a new data catalogue.
It brings together progress made across data infrastructure, access, curation, skills, partnerships and future-facing developments across the research data landscape.
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We are pleased to announce the launch of four new data skills modules designed to help social science data service professionals and social science researchers develop foundational skills in computational social science. As we continue to see fast paced change in the data landscape, the data skills modules will support the use of new forms of data, new methods, ever-greater computing power and rapidly evolving research opportunities.
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Save the date
Labour Force and Annual Population Surveys User Conference 2026
3 December (online)
Are you interested in research using the UK Labour Force and Annual Population Surveys? Do you want to know the latest developments in the data?
This free online conference, organised by the UK Data Service, will be held online on Thursday 3 December 2026. The programme will include a range of presentations by the LFS team at the Office for National Statistics and researchers or analysts who have used LFS or APS data.
Conference booking are now open.
Follow the event on BlueSky: #LFSAPS26
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We have completed a comprehensive restructuring and expansion of our Learning Hub materials for those producing data. The resources are designed to provide social science data producers and their teams with end-to-end, lifecycle support for research data management.
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This UKRI-wide policy updates and harmonises the organisation’s expectations for responsibly managing and sharing research data so it is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR), whilst remaining as open as possible and closed as necessary.
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New release of ELSST Thesaurus (Version 7)
The European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST) is a broad-based, multilingual thesaurus for the social sciences. It is available in fifteen languages: Czech, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. |
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The QUADRA‑AI project will significantly enhance the UK’s qualitative data infrastructure by developing and deploying AI‑enabled tools, strengthening governance frameworks and building researcher capacity to improve the discovery, access and reuse of qualitative data.
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Forthcoming events
Introductory training series: Autumn 2026:
- Data in the spotlight: Census and population studies, 3 November, 10.00 – 11.30
- Data in the spotlight: Longitudinal data, 5 November, 10.00 – 11.30
- Data in the spotlight: Qualitative and mixed methods data, 13 November, 10.00 - 11.30
- Introduction to anonymisation techniques for social sciences research data, 24 November, 10.00 – 11.30
- Data in the spotlight: International time series databanks, 7 December, 10.00 – 11.30
Other events:
UK Data Service drop-in sessions:
Come along to discuss any questions you might have on these topics with experts from the UK Data Service during these free one-hour online sessions.
Code anxiety club
Feeling overwhelmed by the command line? Confused by file pathways? Want to navigate the world of coding with confidence? Join the Code Anxiety Club!
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What’s new from the Impact team?
New case study: Evidence for Equality National survey (EVENS)
Our latest impact case study explores the ongoing impact of the Evidence for Equality National Survey: the first and largest survey of its kind in Britain, capturing the lived experiences of ethnic and religious minority people through COVID-19.
A companion Data Impact blog post digs further into why this dataset is such an interesting one – both as a challenge and model for other data producers.
Interested in reading more about EVENS and what makes it stand out? Read the case study and blog post here. |
2026 marks a decade of the Data Impact Fellow scheme, and we’ve spent the past few months marking it properly – sitting down with Fellows, past and present, to hear what the experience has actually meant to them.
A mini-series on the Data Impact blog brings some of those conversations to life as a celebration of ten years of early career researchers giving their time to impact and engagement work.
Curious what a decade of the Data Impact Fellow scheme has meant to the researchers who lived it? Read the blog series here.
Looking ahead: Data Impact Fellows 2027
With the previous cohorts’ impact being marked, we’re already looking ahead to the next. Applications for the Data Impact Fellow 2027 scheme opened in October, with new Fellows starting in January 2027.
Know an early career researcher who would benefit from joining the scheme? Find out more about applying here.
Our top stories from the Data Impact blog
The Data Impact blog continues to illustrate just how far-reaching UK Data Service data is, feeding into research, policy and real-world impact.
We unpack the Institute for Fiscal Studies Deaton Review of Inequalities, which draws on 28 different UK Data Service datasets – read how the data has helped the review understand different dimensions of inequality and how the review is already contributing to real-world impact.
Resolution Foundation research examines what living standards are like for “Unsung Britain” – lower-income families working more but seeing limited improvements in their living standards.
And a two-part conversation with the Open Knowledge Foundation discusses the importance of open data infrastructure – read part one and part two.
Do you have a story to tell? Contribute to the Data Impact blog or get in touch.
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New impact theme: Local communities in data
We’ve recently launched a new impact theme, Local communities in data. It connects a range of impact outputs and datasets to a live government priority – the Safer Streets Mission – showing how the data we all support feeds directly into real policy concerns.
Want to see how UK Data Service data connects to national safety priorities? Explore the theme and Data Impact blog post here.
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Media watch: The UK Data Service in the news
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from ua.news - 15 October 2026
"Police-recorded robberies in England and Wales rose 10% to 87,362 in the year ending March 2026, while business robberies increased 91% following changes to recording rules."
This article references data which is available in the UK Data Service collection: Crime Survey for England and Wales
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from scitechdaily.com - 2 October 2026
"The struggle to escape poverty can begin long before a first job, with persistent childhood hardship linked to more than triple the risk of being shut out of education and work as a young adult."
This article references data which is available in the UK Data Service collection: Millennium Cohort Study
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from moneyweek.com - 3 October 2026
"It turns out that the UK’s unique productivity puzzle may not have been so much of a puzzle all along – but does it matter?"
This article references data which is available in the UK Data Service collection: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings
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from bbc.co.uk - 21 September 2026
"Some say the initiative is welcome and needed, while others claim it is stoking division."
This article references data which is available in the UK Data Service collection: Crime Survey for England and Wales
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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).
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