CLOSER connects the UK’s 65-plus longitudinal population studies—decades-long surveys tracking tens of thousands of people’s health, work, and family lives—so that researchers, civil servants, and charities can find and use that data together. Without a central hub, these studies exist in isolation. A researcher studying child development might not know that a separate study on ageing holds relevant early-life data. CLOSER’s team of specialists builds the metadata, training, and policy links that let users discover and combine data across studies, turning scattered resources into a coherent national asset. If CLOSER succeeds, the UK’s longitudinal data infrastructure becomes more than the sum of its parts. Policymakers can draw on richer evidence when designing early-years interventions or pension reforms. Charities and think tanks gain access to data that would otherwise require specialist knowledge to navigate. By feeding into Population Research UK and the ESRC’s Data Infrastructure Strategy, CLOSER helps sustain the quiet machinery—data discoverability, cross-community coordination, capacity building—that keeps evidence-informed governance running. This is infrastructure work: invisible when it works, sorely missed when it does not.
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CLOSER is a unique research centre that works to increase the visibility, use and impact of United Kingdom (UK) social and biomedical longitudinal population studies (LPS) data and research, in strategic partnership with LPS teams and data services. Founded in 2012, CLOSER’s team of specialists serve the biomedical and social science communities, providing a suite of core services and resources to connect LPS studies and their users and enabling LPS data and research to drive forward an evidence informed society. In the UK, there are at least 65 LPS [1] mainly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Medical Research Council (MRC), Wellcome Trust, and UK Government. In the period 2024 to 2028, CLOSER will continue to deliver its core services of data discoverability, knowledge exchange, education and training, and policy engagement. These services will be strengthened based on over a decade of experience and will be continually tailored towards the evolving landscape of LPS users including researchers, professional research services staff, non-profit organisations, parliamentary staff, civil servants, charities, and think tanks. Through its international networks, CLOSER will continue to craft a space wherein CLOSER is highly visible on the global stage, bringing further opportunities for external funding and impact. During 2024 to 2028, CLOSER will contribute to Population Research UK (PRUK) through representation on the PRUK management team and by collaborating with LPS organisations and users across the UK. In doing so, CLOSER will connect and strengthen the LPS landscape in the PRUK spoke areas of data discoverability, cross-community activities, and capacity building. CLOSER will support the ESRC’s Data Infrastructure Strategy using its strategic position in the landscape and status as a centre of excellence for providing LPS resources. By continuing to provide high quality, state-of-the-art resources in collaboration with other LPS organisations, data and research infrastructures and informed by user experience, CLOSER will help improve academic and professional skills and capacity for data use, and will engage, lead, and connect LPS users and organisations. Accordingly, CLOSER will help the ESRC build and sustain the foundation for LPS data infrastructure in the UK.
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