We are pleased to announce the launch of Data Capability 2019. This year we will celebrate the use of research data to deliver public benefit and explore innovative use of secure research data.

“I am really looking forward to this year’s Data Capability event which provides the opportunity to explore how public trust and confidence in statistics can be maintained. This is a brilliant event, which I know we will all find invaluable to the work we’re doing. I hope to see you there.”

Frankie Kay, Interim Deputy National Statistician and Director General for Data Capability’

Updated: 01/10/2019

On the day:

09:30 – Arrival and Registration (tea coffee biscuits)
10:00 – Welcome and Scene Setting
10:15 – Speaker: Timandra Harkness
11:00 – Break (tea coffee biscuits)
11:20 – Research Excellence Awards - short video then question time
12:00 - ONS Research Excellence Awards - presentations
12:15 – Lunch and Networking – including finalist market stalls, ADR UK market stall, peer vote.
13:15 – Introduction
13:20 – Speaker: Ashwin Kumar (Professor of Social Policy, Manchester Metropolitan University)
13.50 – Breakout Sessions - Coffee and cake available during breakout sessions
14:40 – Comfort Break
14:45 – Panel Discussion – data innovation for policy-relevant research: Opportunity and Challenges
15:45 - Peer Award winner - presented by Emma Turner
15:55 - Closing thoughts
16:00 - Close

Guest Speakers

We are excited to announce Timandra Harkness and Ashwin Kumar as our guest speakers for Data Capability 2019.

Timandra Harkness and Ashwin Kumar

Timandra Harkness

In addition to her successful writing career, author of 'Big Data: does size matter?', Timandra presents BBC Radio 4 series, FutureProofing and How To Disagree and has presented documentaries, Data, Data Everywhere, Supersense Me & The Singularity.

Timandra is a Visiting Fellow (Knowledge Exchange) in Big Data, Information Rights and Public Engagement with the Centre for Information Rights at the University of Winchester, a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, and a member of their working group on Data Ethics.

Ashwin Kumar

Ashwin Kumar is Professor of Social Policy in the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit at Manchester Metropolitan, having formerly been Chief Economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).

Ashwin is a respected commentator on social policy and appears regularly on TV and in print discussing productivity, poverty, working conditions for people on low wages, housing and household incomes.

Previously he has been a Senior Civil Servant at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Rail Director of the consumer watchdog Passenger Focus and a senior advisor to Gordon Brown. He has also been a board member of the National Housing Federation, the homelessness charity St Mungo’s and the housing association New Charter.

Breakout sessions

The practice of policy relevant analysis in the 21st Century

Choose from a diverse range of topics and take part in an informal engaging discussion with colleages and experts from the research community, with coffee, tea and cake provided.

The three breakout sessions are:

Session 1 - World of Work

Over the average person’s lifetime in the UK, 84,000 hours will be spent at work. ONS is supporting Administrative Data Research UK to link administrative data to better understand this aspect of our lives. This can provide a window into the day-to-day reality of many and shed light on the dynamics that influence economic forces, such as the job market. Research in this strand is currently focusing on wage progression in order to understand salary and pay patterns across the country. Wage progression dynamics is high on policymakers’ agendas, with research requested from each government department on work progression and disparities in outcomes by ethnicity.

Session 2 - Children and young people

Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK) has established a Children & Young People research theme with contributions from across the ADR UK partners. Around two million records have been matched to the 2011 Census, producing a significant sample size for analysis. This breakout session
will consider the value of the data from different stakeholder perspectives as well as the challenges and opportunities offered by such data. The chair of the session will be joined by users who have submitted research proposals to use the data and will share their experiences of the ADR UK research proposal processes.

Session 3 - Making data research ready

When shared for research, administrative data has the potential to provide valuable insights into UK society and what does and doesn’t work in public services. But how can we make data research-ready, so that our most pressing questions can be answered, and policy can be based upon the best evidence possible? How can we improve the quality of our data so that government can work in a more joined-up way? This breakout session aims to explore ‘data maturity’, to investigate methods for improving the research potential of the wealth of administrative data that we already hold.

ONS Research Excellence Award 2019

Meet the finalisists of the ONS Research Excellence Award 2019 and learn how they used research data to deliver outstanding public benefit. Delegates will also have the opportunity to vote for the Peer Award live at the event and find out who will win this year's awards.

Roundtable Panel

Data innovation for policy-relevant research: Opportunity and Challenges

There is progressively increasing availability of datasets from different government, commercial, charitable and other sources. The roundtable panel, drawn from influential data owners, policy makers and data users, will discuss the opportunities this presents for researchers, answering new and innovative policy relevant research questions, cutting across disciplinary boundaries, and in securing funding. The panel will explore the challenges these innovations present for data owners in allowing researchers access to their data.

Panel Host

Iain Bell

Iain Bell, Deputy National Statistician for Population and Public Policy, will be hosting this years' roundtable panel. Iain will be joined by panelists from across the research community, who will be announced here in the coming weeks.

Panelists

Rebecca Riley - Director of the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) and Fellow of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). Her research interests include labour markets, productivity, economic measurement and policy evaluation. Rebecca has led numerous research projects for government departments and funding councils. She has also been an external advisor to UK Trade & Investment, the Department for Work and Pensions and the ONS.

Neil McIvor - Chief Data Officer and Chief Statistician at Director level in the Department for Education. Neil joined the Department for Work and Pensions in 2004, where his first role was to build a billion record pseudoanonymised individual level database, linking benefit and employment spells for all UK adults that had been on welfare benefits at some point since 1998. This Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study became the backbone for social analysis of welfare and employment throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

In 2012, Neil returned to his statistical roots, to become the Department for Work and Pensions Deputy Head of Profession for Statistics, and became DWP’s temporary Chief Data Officer in 2016, moving briefly to the Office for National Statistics to run Business Data Operations, and Student Migration statistics, before moving to his current role.

Kelly Beaver - Managing Director of Public Affairs at Ipsos MORI. She manages a team of over 200 social research and evaluation professionals based in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Belfast and Brussels, providing robust research and analysis across every area of government policy. Kelly joined Ipsos MORI in 2011 following on from her roles at PwC within the Research, Strategy and Policy Group and The Evaluation Partnership (subsequently Coffey International Development). Kelly has directed multidisciplinary teams in advising local, regional, national and international government bodies and agencies on policy design, implementation and reviews.

Networking Lunch

Connect with colleagues, policy makers and research funders over lunch and refreshments provided on the day.

"Fast paced, extremely interesting presentations from all. Good interactive sessions. A great opportunity to showcase ONS" - Data Capability 2018.

The Venue:

Central Hall, Westminster, London

Data Capability 2019 will be hosted at Central Hall, Westminster, London. A map to the venue has been provided on this page (above right) for your convenience. Further details on how to get to the venue will be sent to delegates prior to the event.

ONS Research Excellence Award 2019:

The ONS Research Excellence Award was established to recognise the excellent and innovative analyses carried out using ONS data and/or data we make available on behalf of others, and to promote best practice research methodologies and data matching or linking.

The awards will promote greater awareness and understanding of the data available and the public benefits achieved by statistical research.

The following three awards will be presented on the day:

The ONS Research Excellence Award chosen by our expert Awards Panel.
The ONS Research Excellence Peer Award, chosen by the research community.
The ONS Research Excellence People's Choice Award, open entry award.

Four shortlisted entries for the ONS Research Excellence Award will have the opportunity to present a summary of their research to event delegates in attendance.

The Award Panel

Neil McIvor - Data Director, Chief Data Officer and Chief Statitician Department for Education.

Sarah Henry - Director of Methods, Data and Research. Office for National Statistics.

Tim Drye - Chief Data Officer at Yellow Zebra Artifical Intelligence Agency.

Dr Emma Turner - University of Bristol. ONS Research Excellence Award winner 2018.

Shortlisted Entries announced!

We are proud to announce our shortlisted entries.

In no particular order:

Dr Dougal Hargreaves - Quality of paediatric epilepsy care and epilepsy-related deaths

Professor Peter Dolton - Total Reward and Pension Evaluation by Occupation in the Public Sector

Dr Andromachi Tseloni - Which burglary security works for whom and in what context?

Dr Erik Lenguerrand - Outcomes of revision surgery for managing infected joint replacements

Research Excellence Award Winners

“It was a really enjoyable event and it was good to step back from my current focus on trade and see what the wider data research community is doing”

Tom Knight, Chief Statistician, Department for International Trade on Data Capability 2018.

Join us for Data Capability 2019.

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