Finn Dymond-Green discusses how our impact team is developing understanding of what data impact looks like, and introduces our newest impact theme.
How do we know what impact data in the UK Data Service collection has?
The UK Data Service has been a leader in the field of data impact for some years. As the government-funded ‘library’ where data producers deposit their data and researchers access and use the data, we sit in a unique position to develop an understanding of what we call the ‘golden thread of impact’ – a line that connects from the data through the research it underpins into change in policy, practice, behaviours or more.
Recent examples include working with The Children’s Society to understand the impact of data used in their Good Childhood Report. The research on children’s wellbeing, using data from Understanding Society, directly informs The Children’s Society’s work to reduce a damaging decline in children’s wellbeing by 2030.
Of course, research doesn’t happen in a vacuum. People build on the work of others while others build on theirs. As time goes on, researchers develop their own body of work, developing concepts and hypotheses they have investigated, analysed and evaluated.
In the above example, surveys undertaken as part of The Good Childhood Report contribute to the Office for National Statistics’ Wellbeing Measurement Framework and the DfE’s annual State of the Nation reports on children’s wellbeing.
Another example is, The Homelessness Monitor and related work. Here not only has the data-led research influenced government policy across the four nations of the UK, it has also led to improvements in collating government homelessness statistics, input into work by The Housing Federation and Crisis, the homelessness charity, and contributed to changing approaches to social and affordable housing.
The golden strands of data impact become more complex and intricate as they interweave.
The developing face of data impact
That’s why the impact team at the UK Data Service has been developing an enhanced approach to evidencing and promoting impact. While we will still look at the impact of data-underpinned research on its own, for the past couple of years we have been exploring the bigger interconnected stories of impact.
We chose three areas to explore in our new impact themes approach:
- Poverty, deprivation and the cost of living crisis
- Housing and homelessness (now part of the above poverty theme)
- Mental health and wellbeing
The choice of themes was influenced both by the Economic and Social Research Council’s priorities at the time, but also by identifying key societal areas where data is both available and is producing
Within each of our impact themes, we have looked both forward and backward. Backward as we pulled together a breadth of resources from our Data Impact blog and impact case studies which relates to data and research within these themes, and brought them together into a narrative. We have planned and implemented how to focus much of our limited resources on key research, researchers and organisations working in these fields.
We’ve also tied these themes into other areas of our impact work. Applications for our 2023 Data Impact Fellows scheme were asked to demonstrate how their research connected with the areas. Alongside this our 2024 impact event focused particularly on Poverty in Data.
We will continue to build on this rich seam of looking at data impact across a wider story, while exploring further ways to evidence and promote that impact. Alongside this, we can uncover the benefits of the UK Data Service being funded as national infrastructure to provide a ‘one stop shop’ for not only accessing data, but also providing training and development in how to access and use the data.
Our latest development
We’re pleased to share that we are adding a further impact theme to our work. During the rest of 2024 and into 2025, we will be drawing together a narrative around Children and young people in data.
Why this topic? Aside from its obvious connections to poverty in data and mental health and wellbeing in data, it is a vast and important area shaping the future direction of our country and how we function as society. Research in this area is underpinned by a large variety of data, including Understanding Society, the birth cohort studies (especially the Millennium Cohort Study), the Health Survey for England and UK census data.
We intend that a great deal of focus, including our next cohort of Data impact Fellows and impact events, will relate to our new impact theme (while not forgetting our original ones!).
Keep an eye out for an announcement about this in the next couple of weeks regarding applications for our next Fellows scheme.
Are you working in the area of children and young people, using data available from the UK Data Service? Have a story to share of how your work is influencing policy, processes, or behaviour? Please get in touch.
About the author
Finn Dymond-Green is the UK Data Service Director of Impact. They lead the UK Data Service team based at Jisc, the not-for-profit organisation that empowers the higher, further education and skills sector with technology. The Jisc team evidence and promote the impact of data in the UK Data service collection, as well as making census aggregate data and international microdata available to researchers in all fields.