ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK) is a partnership transforming the way researchers access the UK’s wealth of public sector data, to enable better informed policy decisions that improve people’s lives. By linking together data held by different parts of government, and by facilitating safe and secure access for accredited researchers to these newly joined-up data sets, ADR UK is creating a sustainable body of knowledge about how our society and economy function – tailored to give decision makers the answers they need to solve important policy questions. ADR UK is made up of three national partnerships (ADR Scotland, ADR Wales, and ADR NI) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which ensures data provided by UK government bodies is accessed by researchers in a safe and secure form with minimal risk to data holders or the public. The partnership is coordinated by a UK-wide Strategic Hub, which also promotes the benefits of administrative data research to the public and the wider research community, engages with UK government to secure access to data, and manages a dedicated research budget. ADR UK is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. To find out more, visit adruk.org or follow @ADR_UK on Twitter. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) plays a crucial role in sourcing, linking and curating public sector data for ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK), ensuring that all data is accessed by researchers in a safe and secure form. To support the ADR UK partnership, ONS is expanding and improving its established Secure Research Service (SRS) – the organisation’s facility for providing secure access to de-identified public sector data for research – and significantly increasing the range of administrative data available. ONS will focus on increased data reuse to deliver efficiencies to government departments (who only need to provide data once), and maximise the use of this data by identifying shared priorities and objectives with government departments.

ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK) is a partnership transforming the way researchers access the UK’s wealth of public sector data, to enable better informed policy decisions that improve people’s lives. By linking together data held by different parts of government, and by facilitating safe and secure access for accredited researchers to these newly joined-up data sets, ADR UK is creating a sustainable body of knowledge about how our society and economy function – tailored to give decision makers the answers they need to solve important policy questions. ADR UK is made up of three national partnerships (ADR Scotland, ADR Wales, and ADR NI) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which ensures data provided by UK government bodies is accessed by researchers in a safe and secure form with minimal risk to data holders or the public. The partnership is coordinated by a UK-wide Strategic Hub, which also promotes the benefits of administrative data research to the public and the wider research community, engages with UK government to secure access to data, and manages a dedicated research budget. ADR UK is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. To find out more, visit adruk.org or follow @ADR_UK on Twitter. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) plays a crucial role in sourcing, linking and curating public sector data for ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK), ensuring that all data is accessed by researchers in a safe and secure form. To support the ADR UK partnership, ONS is expanding and improving its established Secure Research Service (SRS) – the organisation’s facility for providing secure access to de-identified public sector data for research – and significantly increasing the range of administrative data available. ONS will focus on increased data reuse to deliver efficiencies to government departments (who only need to provide data once), and maximise the use of this data by identifying shared priorities and objectives with government departments.

ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK) is a partnership transforming the way researchers access the UK’s wealth of public sector data, to enable better informed policy decisions that improve people’s lives. By linking together data held by different parts of government, and by facilitating safe and secure access for accredited researchers to these newly joined-up data sets, ADR UK is creating a sustainable body of knowledge about how our society and economy function – tailored to give decision makers the answers they need to solve important policy questions. ADR UK is made up of three national partnerships (ADR Scotland, ADR Wales, and ADR NI) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which ensures data provided by UK government bodies is accessed by researchers in a safe and secure form with minimal risk to data holders or the public. The partnership is coordinated by a UK-wide Strategic Hub, which also promotes the benefits of administrative data research to the public and the wider research community, engages with UK government to secure access to data, and manages a dedicated research budget. ADR UK is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. To find out more, visit adruk.org or follow @ADR_UK on Twitter. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) plays a crucial role in sourcing, linking and curating public sector data for ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK), ensuring that all data is accessed by researchers in a safe and secure form. To support the ADR UK partnership, ONS is expanding and improving its established Secure Research Service (SRS) – the organisation’s facility for providing secure access to de-identified public sector data for research – and significantly increasing the range of administrative data available. ONS will focus on increased data reuse to deliver efficiencies to government departments (who only need to provide data once), and maximise the use of this data by identifying shared priorities and objectives with government departments.

Previous research conducted at UCL has demonstrated that a name very often provides an open and accessible statement of the cultural, ethnic and linguistic characteristics of its bearer (e.g. Mateos et al 2011). Additional light may be shed upon these characteristics by parental choice of fore-(given) name, while changing fashions often render forenames a valid indicator of age and other geographic and social characteristics. This information has been used to develop working classifications of names, and they have been successfully used to augment incomplete data records for audit purposes - for example in gauging the success of NHS preventive care initiatives across different ethnic groups. However, these classifications have been developed using incomplete address registers (such as the public version of the Electoral Roll) and telephone directories. There are a number of shortcomings to the data sources hitherto used in this kind of research that limit the usefulness of the resulting classifications when applied to new datasets: 1. The data sources underlying the classifications provide incomplete and probably biased representations of the population-at-large. For example, public electoral registers do not include (young and immigrant) non-voters or (privacy sensitive) 'opt out' individuals, and public telephone directories provide less than universal coverage and few given names. 2. Commercial classifications of the age profiles of given names are typically restricted to the 16+ age cohorts, and supplementation with ONS birth name data (e.g. www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/baby-names--england-and-wales/2012/stb-baby-names-2012.html) is error prone because young children may move abroad and immigrants may bring young children with them. Thus these sources do not allow an inclusive snapshot of the population resident in the UK at any specific moment in time. 3. Whilst 'crowd sourced' validation is possible (e.g. www.onomap.org), there is no comprehensive means of comparing predicted and objective (e.g. age) or self-assigned (e.g. ethnicity) characteristics. 4. Little focus has been developed upon refining attempts to classify 'hard to reach' groups, such as Caribbeans, whose ethnicity can likely only be ascertained through subtle associations between forename-surname pairings. 5. The clustering procedure has been largely aspatial, in significant part because of unevenness of geographical coverage and the absence of highly granular location information. This research will address these shortcomings through use of the best available secondary dataset for developing an enriched classification and conducting sensitivity analysis to refine and improve its universal application across the UK. Individual level Census data will be used in order to develop a classification of given and family names into cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups, by extending the methodology of Mateos et al (2011). Crucially, and for the first time, the results of this classification will be compared to individual and household data on Ethnicity, National Identity, Country of Birth, First and Second Language Spoken and Nationality. This will make it possible to investigate the causes of apparent errors in the classification, and to identify the small geographic areas in which they are concentrated. Through an iterative procedure, secure online facilities will be used to improve the classification in the light of these results. Comparison of household and individual classification results with self assignments in terms of Census measures of identity will make it possible to make the classification tool sensitive to indicators of cultural assimilation, whether through inter-marriage or duration of residence, at scales from the local to the national. The 'surname regions' will also be used to add regional context to the 2011 ONS Output Area Classification.

This application seeks continued financial support from the ESRC for LIS (formerly the Luxembourg Income Study), a cross-national data archive and research institute. LIS is a data infrastructure of income and wealth data whose primary purpose is to enable cross-national, interdisciplinary primary research into socio-economic outcomes and their determinants. Whilst LIS is physically located in Luxembourg, users of the LIS microdata come from 70 countries including the UK. The work of acquiring, harmonising and documenting diverse datasets from multiple countries is labour intensive, requiring 10 or more full-time staff. In order to avoid having to charge individual user fees, LIS is seeking financial support to be able to continue providing researchers with access to high-quality data. This application seeks support from ESRC to help cover LIS' basic operating costs, which primarily consists of staff salaries and computer equipment. LIS, the institution, houses two databases - the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) and the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS). LIS datasets include income, employment, and demographic variables at the person- and household-level. Since its founding, LIS datasets have been used by 4,300 researchers from around the world to analyse economic and social policies and their effects on outcomes including poverty, income inequality, employment status, wage patterns, gender inequality, family formation - and when combined with other datasets - child-wellbeing, health status, immigration, political behavior and public opinion. The newer LWS datasets enable research on wealth portfolios, asset levels, and the interplay between household income and wealth. The microdata contained in LIS and LWS are not accessible directly for reasons of confidentiality, and cannot be removed from the LIS office in Luxembourg. Therefore, only registered users may query the microdata via email to the remote-execution system, LISSY, a system-specific job submission interface. The users send programs and receive statistical summaries as the end product of their request. LIS is a unique resource, whose primary function is to facilitate research by providing controlled public access to household data. LIS is the only data archive in existence that includes income, wealth and labour market data, over time and in one place from such diverse geographic regions and at such varied income levels. LIS also provides a high level of user support and hands-on assistance to LIS and LWS researchers - through its online learning materials, user-support staff, and training workshops. LIS has also long operated as a venue for researchers and practitioners to exchange research ideas, results, and methods. These exchanges take place through the widely accessed Working Paper Series, the Visiting Scholar program, pre- and postdoctoral postings, annual workshops, conferences, and virtual venues. The participating countries are high-income and middle-income countries. LIS will continue to grow to include many more middle-income countries' datasets, enabling greater comparative opportunities in income, demographic, and labour market research. Additionally, LWS will continue to develop and grow, adding more countries and years, and thus facilitating new and expanded lines of research related to wealth. The UK was one of the initial participants in both LIS and LWS. Individuals and organisations in the UK have been actively engaged with LIS for three decades, providing data, contributing financing and serving as board members. Since LIS' inception, researchers in the UK have queried the microdata; produced publications, government reports and working papers using the LIS data; attended summer workshops; participated in the Visiting Scholar program; contributed to research conferences and conference volumes; and provided invaluable intellectual guidance and direction regarding LIS' activities and products (names available upon request).