Structural changes in retailing have been reflected in a long term change in the geography of retail activity in the UK. A growth of large scale formats in edge- and out-of-town locations over thirty years has been accompanied, more recently, by a rapid expansion in non-store retail sales. While overall retail sales were growing, the impact of these changes on the mix and relative health of shopping provision was to some extent concealed. But from 2008, as overall retail sales fell, the differential geographical impact on sales has become more apparent. In particular, the long term decline in the proportion of overall retail sales which takes place through town and city centres has accelerated. This issue has attracted significant attention from policy-makers. In thinking about the needs of town and city centres, we need to be clear that this is not just an issue of 'town centres versus out of town'. The reality is more complex, not just because town centres differ in their scale, retail mix, quality and character - and therefore degree of vulnerability, but also because the contribution of other drivers, ranging from demographic change, rigidities and inertia in urban commercial property markets, the targeting of town centre shopping schemes, the increasing penetration of non-store sales, and not least the recession, have led to a complex interplay of forces - what one property developer called 'a Rubik's Cube of an issue'. We are not short of rhetoric and opinion on the future of retail places. We are short, however, of rigorous, evidence-driven analysis. This timely project seeks to combine the data resources of the relatively recently-established Local Data Company with the 25 years' experience and academic rigour which characterises the work of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management, based at the University of Oxford's Said Business School, to produce a 'State of UK Retail Places' report. The Local Data Company (LDC) is a UK leader in retail location data and insight, combining field researchers and bespoke software. LDC surveys each retail premise every 26 weeks, tracking who is opening and who is closing; the history of each premise; and exactly where the 45,000 vacant retail units in the UK are located. The Oxford Institute of Retail Management has a track record of producing The project seeks to produce the first in what could be a series of annual analyses of UK retail geography. In particular, the project will explore the changing character of retail places and consider the continued relevance of 'hierarchies' of centres; develop measures of vulnerability and resilience for places; look at short term change as well as considering what UK retail places might look like in five years time given what we know about present trends and drivers. A subsidiary output will be the development of a data set which will have the potential to act as a Town 'Tool Kit' that will enable retail places to better understand how they are evolving against national trends.

Despite actions following the Portas Review (Portas 2011), it is clear that UK retailing remains in crisis. This is most obviously manifest in the unprecedented vacancy rates of retail premises that have arisen following the onset of the longest economic downturn since the 1930s (at least). Within Great Britain, estimates of vacancy rates stand at 14.2% (LDC, 2013), although this national figure masks very considerable local variation. For example, between the Government Office Regions of England, rates vary from a low of 7.5% (London) through to 17.5% (North West); with some town centre vacancy rates as high as 34% (Morecambe West End: LDC, 2013). There is increasing evidence that the effects of local economic conditions upon conventional retailing are being compounded by the emergence and consolidation of different forms of e-commerce - which is estimated to have accounted for nearly half of all retail sales growth in the UK between 2003 and 2010 (Javelin Group, 2011) - and the emergence of m-commerce (using mobile technologies). This proposal builds upon successful research that was concluded as part of the ESRC e-Society Programme in 2005, however, since this work was completed, the use of the Internet has grown from 60% to 73%, and more significantly, the percentage of users with access to broadband has increased from 31% to 71% (ONS 2010) - with consequences for adoption of new and increasingly media rich user experiences. Over the same period the availability of wireless broadband (3G or WiFi) has increased and its costs have fallen, while new generation mobile handsets (often with geolocation functionality) have been widely adopted (Haklay et al 2008). The project involves an innovative collaboration with the Local Data Company (LDC) who collect numerous unique data on the composition and health of British retailing. The project concerns the measurement of "e-Resilience" in relation to retail catchment areas. We define retail e-Resilience in terms of the extent to which retail centres are exposed to consumers who are heavily engaged with information and communication technologies, and the virtual retail channels that these enable. As such, there are three main strands to this research: (a) to create conventional catchment areas of British retail centres; (b) to measure engagement with information and communication technologies at a small area level and create a summary "e-Resilience" measure for the conventional catchments; (c) to conduct sensitivity analysis on retail centre catchments and their e-Resilience. Outputs from the project will include a series of derived datasets, that can be used to give shape to the funded portfolio of KEO and KTP projects within the Retail Programme including: A nationwide classification of e-Resilience at the LSOA level; a nationwide database of conventional catchments for retail centres, built using the best available data on retail structure and vacant units; and, a nationwide database of retail centre catchments that takes into account e-Resilience and current structure and vacancy rates.

Since 2014 the Consumer Data Research Centre based at University College London and the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford (CDRC-ULO) has been a leading international centre for the acquisition, analysis and provisioning of consumer and business data to the UK research community. As of September 2021, we have supported 27,494 users through our public data portals and Trusted Research Environments (TREs), with usage growth of 104% (121% for Controlled/Safeguarded data and 87% for Open data) over the preceding 12 months. We aim to sustain this performance during ESRC's planned transition to the DigitalFootprints Data Service. The CDRC-ULO service delivers against ESRC's national priorities and needs for the social sciences by facilitating unique and cutting-edge research. As of September 2021 CDRC-ULO data have been cited in 203 peer reviewed academic papers. It also sustains an infrastructure that has nationally significant social and economic impact. Indicative examples include: provision of data integral to Transport for London's "Healthy Streets 2021/2" planning that supports £2.1 billion of infrastructure investment to encourage more active, efficient and sustainable travel modes; use of the Ethnicity Estimator tool (ee.cdrc.ac.uk) developed in partnership with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) by Public Health Wales to examine ethnic variations in outcomes for patients hospitalised in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic; emergency provision of current small area ethnicity estimates to the UK Government Joint Biosecurity Centre's (JBC) pandemic response; and participation with ONS/JBC/ADRUK in the "Local Data Spaces" initiative to deliver and evaluate the UK Covid-19 "mass testing" exercise and subsequent opening up of society and the economy (winner of a 2021 ONS Research Excellence award). Such cases demonstrate fulfilment of CDRC-ULOs objective of enabling the user of consumer / business data to develop the quality, quantity and impact of social science research and anticipates the value of the prospective DigitalFootprint data service. CDRC-ULO continues to build on such successes with the mission: (a) to sustain international leadership in the identification, acquisition and preparation of strategic consumer / business data assets; making these findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) for innovative thematic research; (b) to enable best use of strategically important data that are developed using cutting edge research supported as appropriate by Trusted Research Environments (TREs) and digital platforms; (c) to build data skills capacity through training and successful research applications using consumer data, consistent with UKRI and wider UK Innovation / National Data Strategies; and (d) to ensure responsible (lawful, secure, fair and ethical) use of consumer / business data. These infrastructural, service, capacity building and ethical functions underpin our ongoing commitments to innovation and service delivery in the context of the Digital Footprints prototype initiative. CDRC-ULO is funded by the ESRC to deliver a comprehensive and internationally leading data service to external users. To maximise its role as core UK social science infrastructure, CDRC-ULO has pursued increased harmonisation of data acquisition and asset use with other ESRC centres (specifically UBDC and CDRC-Leeds) and has worked with NCRM on training provision. CDRC-ULO continues to innovate in data service provision, development and enhancement, while also supporting the immediate objectives of the DigitalFootprints Prototype.

The UK RDRF brings together a number of research strands funded under the DET, EPSRC and ESRC portfolios over the last decade to create a national facility to tackle the vexed question of regional competitiveness and rebalancing the UK economy. Following the Scottish referendum there have been renewed calls for greater devolution to regions and core cities. This facility will bring together the big economic data and construct the high resolution models needed to support policy makers at national, regional and local level. It will innovate by building together a model of the fixed stock of buildings, including housing, commercial, warehousing and manufacturing, with a network model of key infrastructure. This will allow analysis of which policy nudges might be expected to overcome the inertia present in the historic geography of the UK. It will allow a common framework of data and evidence ti be used by regional and local policy professionals wishing to evaluate policy options. The whole facility is built on the opportunity created by CDT funding to develop a cohort of evidence based policy professionals and analysts to support the needs of a more devolved form of planning. We aim to support the creation of a 'community of practice' based on access to big economic data and open source analysis and modelling tools. We will host workshops and networks to spread best practice and create some institutional glue amongst the people concerned. Finally, we will engage local communities in the debate and bring the same evidence and tools to the public at large through crowd science and in-the-wild research engagement.