Applications for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Research Excellence Awards 2024 are now closed. On this page you can learn more about this year's award categories, online ceremony event, and the judging panel.
1. Background
Each year, around 300 projects gain approval to access the secure data held within ONS Trusted Research Environments for statistical research; Secure Research Service (SRS), or the Integrated Data Service (IDS). The research outcomes inform a diverse range of key economic and societal issues. Everything from inequalities in education and the cost of living through to insights on new linked health datasets.
The awards recognise the excellent and innovative analyses carried out and promote best practice research methodologies and data matching or linking. The awards promote greater awareness and understanding of the data made available and the public good achieved from statistical analyses of the data.
Awards were decided by an independent judging panel made up of experts from across the research community.
2. Awards
This year, we offered six Award categories.
Impact of Analysis Award
The Impact of Analysis Award celebrates research in an ONS managed data service that has had a significant impact on the public good.
Impact of Analysis Award – Collaboration with Government
This award recognises successful collaboration between researchers and at least one UK government department or devolved administration.
Secure Data Creation Award
This award celebrates the creation, linkage or engineering of, or improvement to, the accessibility or availability of secure data already, or intended to be, available in a Trusted Research Environment managed by the ONS.
Organisational Excellence Award
The Organisational Excellence Award recognises departments and teams who have gone above and beyond for their users in facilitating access to secure data provided by ONS data services.
ADR UK Research Excellence Award
This award recognises innovative and impactful research funded by Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK) carried out in any Trusted Research Environment.
ONS People's Choice Award
Shortlisted entries across all Research Excellence Awards categories were eligible for the ONS People’s Choice Award. Voting for the People’s Choice Award has now closed for this year.
3. Winners
Impact of Analysis Award
Joint winners:
Dr Katie Hunter, Manchester Metropolitan University
Project title: Understanding the intersections between ethnicity, care experience and youth justice involvement
This project uses newly linked administrative datasets from the Ministry of Justice and Department for Education to explore how children who have been in out of home care and children from racially minoritised backgrounds are disproportionately drawn into the youth justice system in England.
Read the highlighted publication on the ADR UK website to learn more.
Watch the related animation on YouTube
Allen Joseph and Whitney Crenna-Jennings, Education Policy Institute
Project title: Early adult outcomes for suspended and excluded pupils
This research demonstrates that young people who are suspended during secondary school experience a range of poorer outcomes in late adolescence and early adulthood compared with their peers.
Read the highlighted publication from the Education Policy Institute to learn more.
Impact of Analysis Award – Collaboration with Government
Christina Palmou (Office for National Statistics), Jakob Schneebacher (Competition and Markets Authority) and Thiemo Fetzer (University of Warwick)
Project title: How do firms cope with economic shocks in real time?
This work builds a new toolbox, of high-frequency linked microdata, to estimate firm responses to economic shocks in near real-time.
Read the highlighted publication from the Competition and Markets Authority website to learn more.
Secure Data Creation Award
The ECHILD Team, Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health at University College London
Project title: Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD)
The ECHILD project has enabled linkage of multi-agency data to provide a more holistic understanding of children's lives and how they interact with services spanning health, education and social care.
Learn more on the ECHILD website.
Organisational Excellence Award
The DRAGoN Team, University of the West of England Bristol
Project title: Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN)
This is a multi-disciplinary research group that aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, think-tanks, industry and government to help improve tools, operations and skills in relation to output checking in Trusted Research Environments.
Learn more on the DRAGoN website.
ADR UK Research Excellence Award
Dr Kitty Lymperopoulou, University of Plymouth
Project title: Ethnic inequalities in the Criminal Justice System
This research addresses knowledge gaps on wide ethnic disparities in the Criminal Justice System highlighted in recent government reports. It provides evidence on the extent and drivers of ethnic disparities, identifying effective ways of addressing them.
Read the highlighted publication from the British Journal of Criminology to learn more.
ONS People's Choice Award
The Virus Watch Team, University College London
Project title: Virus Watch
This work led to the creation of a new linked dataset in 2020, that provides evidence on which public health approaches are most effective in reducing transmission, and investigating community incidence, symptoms, and transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) in relation to population movement and behaviours. Learn more on the Virus Watch website.
4. More information
If you have any questions about the ONS Research Excellence Awards, please email IDS.Impact@ons.gov.uk.