Wales is building a centralised system to let researchers across the UK access government data on education, housing, homelessness, health, and the environment—safely and without compromising privacy. This matters because government departments hold vast amounts of data that could inform better policy, but researchers often cannot get to it. The data sits in separate silos, governed by different rules, and sharing it safely has been slow and cumbersome. The Administrative Data Research Centre Wales (ADRCW) aims to solve that by expanding its existing SAIL Databank and data-sharing platforms—tools already used in health research—to cover non-health topics. It will also integrate into a UK-wide network, so researchers anywhere can apply to use Welsh data for projects aligned with government priorities. If this succeeds, policymakers in Wales and across the UK could make faster, more evidence-based decisions on issues like school performance, homelessness prevention, and environmental planning. The public would benefit from better-targeted services, while privacy protections remain in place. The centre will also train the next generation of data scientists by giving them hands-on experience with real, anonymised datasets.
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ADRCW will build on its achievements over the last four years, learning the lessons from both its work in Wales and its involvement with other UK components of the ADRN. With even closer cooperation with Welsh Government, enabled by new, much-needed investment in Wales' NSA, and with new funding to expand the operational remit of the SAIL Databank to cover non-health subjects and data, we will work in a new focussed way to deliver research benefits straight to government. In doing so, we will build up our data assets, already better than any other parts of the UK, and make them more convenient to access and use. We will take advantage of our existing, innovative, and widely used data sharing tools and platforms (e.g. National Research Data Appliances) to support data owners in sharing their data for research safely, simply, efficiently and regularly. We will also utilise our data access platforms (UKSeRP and SAIL Gateway) to allow access to the data by any researcher across the UK (subject to permissions and approvals). We will work hard to integrate our Centre into the emerging UK-wide model for ADRP, and play our part in facilitating access to potent data across the UK. Our centre will provide a seamless services to research users (where this is sensible) and take a full part in delivering strategic programmes of research set at a UK level. We will continue to support our current portfolio of projects, but will begin to steer project proposals coming from the research community at large towards topics that fit with Wales' and the UK's strategic governmental interests. Our engagement with the Welsh population regarding the secondary use of their data will continue, and feed into a research programme where we strive to develop and test ways of improving privacy in the work of our Centre and others like it. We will continue to support the next generation of big data social scientists, supporting them at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels by providing them opportunities to interact with real data on real project wherever possible. Our Strategic Impact Programmes (SIPs) in Education, Housing and Homelessness, Health and the Environment, Future Generations, and Emerging Governmental Priorities have been devised in partnership with Welsh Government and are hard wired into policy areas. These SIPs are designed to deliver impact, which we shall collate, share and promote as part of an efficient management and reporting approach operating right across the Centre, and harmonised across all the ESRC ADRP investments.
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