The UK Data Service, supported by the ESRC, provides long-term data curation and continuous access to key data assets of interest to research and teaching for the broader range of social sciences. It offers managed services for data owners, enabling access to key data assets that are free at the point of use.
We handle thousands of data collections from uk rcs data social and epidemiological surveys, psychology experiments, and fieldwork on a huge rage of topics studied by social scientists. One of our speciality areas is handing large-scale government social surveys and the national long-running UK cohort and longitudinal studies such as National Child Development Study, 1970 British Cohort Study, Next Steps, Millennium Cohort Study and Understanding Society. All of these studies include significant biomedical measures.
A robust licensing and governance framework is used to ensure that datasets are made available under terms specified by the data owner. We operate a three-tier data access policy where data can be:
made openly available as Open data;
placed behind gates as Safeguarded data, where data are downloadable with authentication and authorisation and, where necessary, owner approval; or
be available as Controlled data through our safe haven, the UK Data Service Secure Lab.