Research events at the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Each year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) organise a wide range of events. These are curated specifically for the research community and bring together researchers, data owners, government representatives and policy makers.

Our events include our annual in-person Research Capability conference, the Research Excellence Series of talks and online events focused on key updates to our services.

The upcoming schedule is detailed below, and you can book directly through this page. 

We will keep you updated through our monthly newsletter and other communications. If you are not on our mailing list, please contact us. 

We look forward to you joining us for an exciting year of interesting and informative events.

On Thursday 4 December, we hosted this year's Research Capability event at the Leonardo Royal Hotel London St Paul's, London. It was a free, in-person gathering where researchers, data owners, government representatives, and policy makers celebrated and shared research excellence.

This one-day conference happens each year, and is designed to recognise outstanding work carried out in the research community using ONS-owned or managed data. It also raises awareness of how to access our wealth of data and use them through platforms such as the Secure Research Service.

Under the theme Research for the public good, Research Capability 2025 explored how research can be designed, conducted, and applied to benefit the public, and improve lives.

Delegates enjoyed:

• a keynote speech by Alan Smith OBE, Head of Visual and Data Journalism at the Financial Times
• a selection of tailored workshops
• opportunities to network with peers and professionals

It was a very successful and well-attended event, with excellent engagement from the research community.

As part of the event, we celebrated our Research Excellence Awards 2025, which recognised this year's exceptional and innovative analyses. These awards showcased best practices in research methods and data matching or linking, while promoting greater awareness of the data available, and the public good achieved through statistical research.

Learn more about our Research Capability 2025 event in the Administrative Data Research (ADR) UK blog.

Research Excellence Series

Each year, we organise a collection of online research events called the Research Excellence Series. The series showcases exceptional research projects that use a diverse wealth of invaluable research data. These data are used by researchers to produce new insights, inform change, and make a difference in people's lives.

Each session will explore the story of a unique research project from inception to methodology, dissemination, and impact. These sessions will be hosted by an eclectic range of speakers from across the research community.

Research Excellence Series Talks 2026

This year's series will include the winners from the ONS Research Excellence Awards 2025.

The awards recognise the excellent and innovative analyses carried out throughout the year and promote best practice research methodologies and data matching or linking. They also promote greater awareness and understanding of the data made available, and the public good achieved from statistical analyses of the data. 

Find out more about the Research Excellence Awards 2025. 

Join us for our popular series for the chance to get closer to researchers and their inspiring projects through our virtual events.

Upcoming talks:

January

We are delighted to welcome economist and Administrative Data Research (ADR) UK Research Fellow Dr Paul Garcia Hinojosa, from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex.

This talk will examine how socio-emotional and cognitive difficulties identified in early childhood are associated with adolescent offending, drawing on de-identified, linked administrative data from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Department for Education (DfE). His project aims to inform early interventions to help prevent youth crime.

Virtual Event

Socio-emotional characteristics in early childhood and offending behaviour in adolescence

Who

Dr Paul Garcia Hinojosa, University of Essex

When

Thursday 29 January, 10:30am to 11:30am

Where 

Microsoft Teams

Book your place

Previous 2025 talks:

January

For our first talk, we were delighted to welcome three ADR UK Research Fellows who shared insights from their research using ADR England flagship datasets.

Virtual Event

Immigration, Geographic Mobility, and Social Mobility: Insights from Administrative Data

Who

Dr Ezgi Kaya (Cardiff University), Xiaowei Xu (Institute for Fiscal Studies) and Dr Francesca Foliano (UCL Social Research Institute)

If you missed this talk it can be found on the ADR UK YouTube Channel.

February

We were pleased to welcome the ECHILD project team, winners of the ONS Research Excellence Award - Secure Data Creation Award.

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. 

Virtual Event

ECHILD: Linking longitudinal data from health, education and social care to create a national resource for research in children and families

Who 

Professor Katie Harron (University College London (UCL), Great Ormond Street (GOS) Institute of Child Health) 

If you missed this talk it can be found on the YouTube Channel.

March

We were delighted to welcome the winners of the ONS Research Excellence Award - Impact of Analysis Award – Collaboration with Government.

This team's work built a new toolbox, of high-frequency linked microdata, to estimate firm responses to economic shocks in near real-time. 

Virtual Event 

How do firms cope with economic shocks in real time?

Who 

Christina Palmou (Office for National Statistics)

If you missed this talk it can be found on the YouTube Channel.

April

We were pleased to welcome the Virus Watch project team, winners of the ONS Research Excellence Award - People's Choice Award.

Their work led to the creation of a new linked dataset in 2020. It provides evidence on which public health approaches are most effective in reducing transmission. It also investigates community incidence, symptoms, and transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) in relation to population movement and behaviours.

Virtual Event

Virus Watch - understanding community incidence, symptom profiles and transmission of COVID-19 in relation to population movement and behaviour

Who

Vincent Nguyen (UCL Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health) Dr Sarah Beale (Institute of Health Informatics, University College, London)

If you missed this talk it can be found on the You Tube Channel.

May

We were delighted to welcome Dr Alice Wickersham who won a commendation in the 2024 ONS Research Excellence Awards for her work on Insights from linked education and justice data: Educational attainment and criminal offending.

In this talk, Dr Alice Wickersham showcased work undertaken as part of a Research Fellowship funded by Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK). Introducing linked data from England’s Department for Education (DfE) and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and showing how these data facilitate important research into school performance and criminal justice.

Virtual Event

Insights from linked data: School performance and criminal justice

Who

Dr Alice Wickersham (Kings College London)

If you missed this talk it can be found on the You Tube Channel.

June 

For June's talk we were delighted to welcome the DRAGoN Team, from the University of the West of England Bristol (UWE). They were the winners of the ONS Research Excellence Award – Organisational Excellence Award.

This is a multi-disciplinary research group. They aim to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, think-tanks, industry and government. They will help improve tools, operations and skills in relation to output checking in Trusted Research Environments. 

Virtual Event 

Taming the DRAGoN: Building Bridges to Secure Data Access and Collaboration

Who 

Damian Whittard

If you missed this talk it can be found on the YouTube Channel.

July

For July’s talk, we were delighted to welcome the keynotes from the ONS Research Excellence Award 2024.

Daniel Ayoubkhani talked about quantifying the impact of various health conditions and interventions on labour market outcomes, using a new data asset for England.

Virtual Event

Exploring the relationship between work and health using linked data

Who

Daniel Ayoubkhani (Office for National Statistics)

If you missed this talk it can be found on the YouTube Channel.

August

For this month’s talk we were delighted to welcome Dr Tim McSweeney Dawes Chair of Public Protection

Tim talked about the research funded by the Dawes Trust and undertaken in partnership with the Prison Reform Trust, this study describes the parole cohort and the extent and nature of post-release rates of recall, custodial reconviction, and serious further offending by parolees and other prisoners in England and Wales between 2011 and 2021.

Virtual Event

Understanding parole success following release from prison

Who

Dr Tim McSweeney (Dawes Chair of Public Protection)

If you missed this talk it can be found on the YouTube Channel.

September

We were pleased to welcome Dr Carly Lightowlers from University of Liverpool.

Carly’s talk explored the effectiveness of court-enforced alcohol interventions in reducing reoffending among individuals whose crimes were linked to alcohol use. Drawing on over 1 million records from probation and magistrates’ court datasets, the study evaluates the impact of Alcohol Abstinence Monitoring Requirements (AAMR) and Alcohol Treatment Requirements (ATR). Findings suggest that enforced abstinence may lower the likelihood of reoffending, while treatment requirements show no significant effect. The session will reflect on the implications for justice policy, rehabilitation, and the future of alcohol-related sentencing.

Virtual Event

Enforced alcohol abstinence: does it reduce reoffending?

Who

Dr Carly Lightowlers (University of Liverpool)

If you missed this talk it can be found on the YouTube Channel.

October

We were pleased to welcome the winner of the ONS Research Excellence Award - ADR UK Research Excellence Award.

This talk discussed findings examining the extent and drivers of ethnic inequalities in the Criminal Justice System drawing on criminal justice datasets developed through Data First, a pioneering data-linking programme led by the Ministry of Justice and funded by ADR UK.

Virtual Event

Ethnic Inequalities in Sentencing: Evidence from the Crown Court in England and Wales

Who

Dr Kitty Lymperopoulou (University of Plymouth)

November

We were pleased to welcome Laurence O'Brien, Senior Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

This talk explored how private pensions now represent the largest share of UK household wealth and examined the impact of automatic enrolment on pension participation.

Using linked employer and census data, the research shows Bangladeshi and Pakistani employees are twice as likely to opt out of workplace pensions, missing out on valuable employer contributions and tax benefits. This can reduce retirement income by up to 60%. 

Virtual Event

Ethnic differences in retirement wealth accumulation in the UK

Who

Laurence O'Brien (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

When

Thursday 27 November – 10:30 to 11:30

Where

MS Teams

If you have any questions about research events at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), please email srs.engagement.team@ons.gov.uk.