Recipient organisationSwansea UniversitySource-published name: Swansea University
Funding£15.1M
PeriodMar 2026 — Mar 2031
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Wales is linking together anonymised data from health records, education, housing, and social services to answer policy questions that no single dataset can address alone. This project, Administrative Data Research Wales (ADR Wales), builds on a decade of work connecting government-held information for research while protecting individual privacy. The problem is that policymakers often make decisions without seeing the full picture—how a housing policy affects hospital visits, or how school attendance connects to later employment. ADR Wales gives researchers secure access to linked data through a trusted research environment, allowing them to spot these connections. If successful, the project will expand this capability across the UK, using artificial intelligence and new data-linking methods to answer questions about poverty, health inequalities, and public service delivery. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this infrastructure proved its worth by rapidly providing evidence on vaccine uptake and infection patterns. The grant focuses on making these data resources more flexible, responsive, and collaborative across UK nations—improving the quiet infrastructure that helps governments understand what actually works.
View original technical description
ADR Wales will continue to work as a single aligned team to deliver research programmes designed to support the priority areas identified by the Welsh Government with an additional component of seeking UK opportunities where challenges are shared in other administrations and conducting research that aligns with the UK Government 5 Missions. It will build on the achievements and successes achieved during the 2022-2026 grant phase and aims to have a much wider UK focus on activities as well as continuing to support key Welsh Government policy areas. The case for support from ADR Wales is built around the following ambitions: 1. To deliver and enhanced flexible, responsive core programme of policy led impactful research, data acquisition, and infrastructure provision for Wales and partner with other administrations where shared research benefits exist to realise wider impactful outcomes from research. 2. To focus on working at a UK level with partners to collectively achieve the FBC objectives 3. To mobilise key strengths of SAIL/ADRW to drive forward the linked data agenda for the UK with new partnerships, technological development (AI, Federation), and knowledge exchange with partners. Since 2018 and the commencement of the initial ADRUK pilot project through to subsequent reinvestments ADR UK and ADR Wales have adopted learned lessons and remain flexible to both current and future needs. SAIL and ADR Wales have proven the case for the benefits of linked data research across policy areas, as well as mobilised the knowledge and power of linked data in emergency situations such as the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. This case for support carries forward in its request for a new period of funding core principles of accountability transparency, innovation, and collaborative working which underpin the successful operation of ADR Wales. ADR Wales has been demonstrably successful in both the Welsh and UK context, from innovations to data acquisition and many other activity subsets. The case for support is fully aligned to the ADRUK strategic objectives and strategic priorities, Welsh Government and UK Government priorities and is fundamentally outward looking, collegiate and collaborative in nature Beyond maintaining core TRE and research activities ‘for Wales’, a significant portion of the grant requested (beyond the initial funding envelope) is focused on realising transformational benefits for the UK and all ADR partners. These activities include driving forward and supporting federation development, artificial intelligence and its utilisation in linked data services and research, the mobilisation of geographic information systems and new methods of linkage to provide a step change in data research capabilities across the partnership. The case for support builds on lessons learned from the operation of ADR Wales, from best practice developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, knowledge derived through collaboration with partners and careful reflection on the recommendations of Deep dives and feedback from the evaluation. The refunding proposal finds ADRW in a positive state. In preparation for the 2026-2031 grant period, reviews, reflective analysis, deep dive recommendations and areas of improvement are being assessed.
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