- Home
- Administrative data
- Our research
- About us
- Contact us
- News and events
- BLOG - Access to secure data during the Covid-19 pandemic - a model for the future?
- Covid-19 and Care Homes: Advances in Administrative Data Research during the pandemic
- DATA INSIGHTS -Deprivation and informal care at the end of life
- NEWS - Innovative new residential linkage tool launched
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.4
- DATA INSIGHTS - Youth Movements, Social Mobility and Health Inequalities
- NEWS - New report warns of deepening poverty crisis for Scottish families
- New report on Infants Born into Care in Scotland
- Spotlight on Dr Elizabeth Lemmon
- Spotlight on Jan Savinc
- BLOG - The value of social science and administrative data research in Scotland: how we are helping respond to COVID-19
- DATA INSIGHTS - Exploring illegal drug consignments in Scotland
- DATA INSIGHTS -Linking two administrative data sets about looked after children
- NEWS – ADR Scotland data ambassadors launched
- The importance of administrative data
- Virtual Conference - Data Linkage: Information to Impact
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No.7
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.3
- DATA INSIGHTS - Investigating the effects of class composition and class size on pupils’ attainment in Scottish primary schools
- NEWS - New opportunity to join ADR Scotland’s Public Panel
- BLOG - Exploring the potential of synthetic data
- DATA INSIGHTS - Automatic Coding of Occupations: Methods to create the Scottish Historic Population Database (SHPD)
- DATA INSIGHTS - Selective schools: do they improve health?
- EVENT - Active Travel: New Data, New Insights
- EVENT - Holyrood Evidence Week: Doing Data Better for Policy and Public Good
- BLOG - Geospatial Ambitions
- BLOG - Taking historical death records and developing a database for future analysis
- DATA INSIGHTS - Community mortality due to Covid-19
- Future-proofing investment into administrative data research announced in Scotland
- NEWS - Understanding the dynamics of the nursing workforce: the potential of routinely collected data
- Spotlight on Katherine Falconer
- ADR Scotland publishes its strategy for 2022-2026
- BLOG: Developing a cross-national research agenda on crime and convictions
- BLOG: Working together to make a difference with data
- DATA INSIGHTS - Homelessness duration in Scotland: how long does rehousing take?
- DATA INSIGHTS - Occupation and COVID-19 deaths: Scotland in a comparative perspective
- DATA INSIGHTS -The health and economic benefits of active commuting in Scotland
- IPDLN Conference - Data linkage research: informing policy and practice
- Spotlight on Dr Evan Williams
- Spotlight on Fernando Pantoja
- Spotlight on Laurie Berrie
- ADR Scotland Winter Partnership Session - **internal event**
- BLOG - AGEING AND HOMELESSNESS IN SCOTLAND
- BLOG - Can we use linked administrative data to identify social disadvantage?
- BLOG - Commuting and its impact on health
- BLOG - The Dynamics of the Nursing Workforce in the UK: Using data to support our nurses
- BLOG: Growing up in kinship care
- DATA INSIGHTS - Analysing a season of death and excess mortality in Scotland’s past
- EVENT - ADR UK Virtual Half Day event
- Event - Public data for public good: towards better understanding children's lives
- NEWS - Data research initiative secures £90 m funding extension
- NEWS: Our role supporting the new Covid-19 research data service in Scotland
- Spotlight on Michelle K Jamieson
- Webinar - An Introduction to Looked-After Children Dataset
- BLOG - An Inside Job: Using Criminology, Police Data and a Lot of Nouse
- BLOG - Improving justice data to promote data justice in Scotland
- BLOG - Location of death in 2020: a changing trend from hospitals to homes
- BLOG - Seeking feedback on Research Data Scotland’s core principles via our public panel
- BLOG - What skills, training and support are required by those wishing a career as an administrative data researcher?
- BLOG No. 9 - Final blog in this 'deaths at home' series
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No. 6
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home - No.8
- BLOG SERIES - Dramatic increase in deaths at home- No.5
- BLOG: 5 things I've learnt about working with policymakers...
- BLOG: Automating Coding for Large Historical Datasets
- BLOG: COVID-19- How increased deaths at home impact the carer community
- DATA INSIGHTS -Postal deliveries of drugs in Scotland
- EVENT - 'Getting things done with data in government'
- EVENT - Linking public sector data for research: an ADR UK showcase event
- EVENT Seminar - Administrative data for social policy research: potential and pitfalls
- NEWS - Additional funding for Understanding Children’s Lives and Outcomes
- NEWS - Engaging children and young people
- NEWS: Police use of Fixed Penalty Notices under the Covid-19 regulations in Scotland: A new data report highlights links with deprivation and inequality
- NEWS: Police use of the new Covid-19 powers: Using administrative data to analyse and evaluate practice
- Research Data Scotland - New user forum
- Spotlight on Dr Patricio Troncoso
- Summary of ADR Scotland Winter Partnership session
- Directorship of the International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) for 2021-22.
- BLOG: In the light of experience: InterRAI and the final thousand days of life
- Multiple health conditions and social care
- NEWS - Susan McVie elected as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
- SCADR relocates to the Bayes Centre
- EVENT: Four day introduction to using administrative data for social and health research
- BLOG: The value of administrative data: DALYs and the Scottish Burden of Disease study
- BLOG: Where to start with parliamentary and policy engagement
- EVENT - International Conference on Administrative Data Research, Cardiff
- EVENT - Using data to realise the potential of the 'Last 1000 days'
- EVENT: TalkingData: ADR Scotland mini-summit
- EVENT: “Let’s use data to save time, money and lives”: ADR Scotland partners gather for mini-summit
- EVENTS: ADR Scotland researchers present at international conference in Cardiff
- SafePod Network
BLOG - 5 things I've learnt about working with policymakers...
In this blog our Impact and Knowledge Exchange Manager Harriet Barker shares some insights about bringing together academic researchers and government policymakers.
-
Last month I accompanied a researcher to meet with a policymaker in government, supporting them to work together to develop a research project. Afterwards, I asked the researcher (who was new to co-producing research questions in this way) how they’d found it.
They remarked: “It was great to meet them in person and get to know each other’s needs. The main thing I realised was that all the research questions I had previously thought would be relevant and useful for policy, in fact aren’t as aligned as I’d thought.
“But now I have a better understanding and know where they’re coming from, so I can design projects with this in mind and help maximise the benefit. ”
Working in impact and knowledge exchange for the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research, and as part of the ADR Scotland team, I have been privileged to work within Scottish Government part of each week. We are focused on bringing researchers like this one together with policymakers more often, aiming to better support and understand how academic research can influence policy.
A complex context
The areas we are working on are administrative data and data linkage. The first aspect appears to be fairly straightforward – administrative data is data routinely collected by the public sector such as by the NHS, local authorities or government departments. Data linkage also seems comprehensible – the linking of different datasets together to gain greater insights into outcomes, trends and trajectories. So the two terms on their own don’t seem too problematic. However when you start to discuss the nuances of this kind of research - variables, cohorts, population spines, de-identified data, safe settings etc - it all becomes a bit more complex (and technical!).
How can longitudinal data, collected over time about populations, be relevant to current policy issues? What can our kind of research offer to a government policy context and society’s broader evidence base, and vice versa? Add onto that the complexity of the policy environment, not least in such tumultuous times as these, and there isn’t a shortage of challenges to overcome.
We know this data is incredibly rich and can provide huge insights, so across our work as a partnership we’re exploring how we can ensure our research doesn’t just align to policy, but actually helps to inform and shape it too.
The lessons I’ve learnt so far:
- LISTEN: Listen to what policymakers have got to say – their perspective may be quite different and they may look at issues from a completely different point of view. This will help you to frame your ideas with their context in mind.
- BE FLEXIBLE: Think about how your research, your expertise and - in this case - the data available, might be able to answer their questions. Can your research be reshaped? How can new emerging agendas be considered? Can you share initial findings earlier, so they can start utilising them? How can you work together to create something that’s useful for both your needs?
- BE PREPARED: Know what your pitch is and what you can offer. Think of the key messages and what you’d like to convey. It’s unlikely you’ll get much time to discuss ideas at length, so you need to be confident with what you need from policy meetings and be able to explain your research ideas and expertise clearly and succinctly.
- DEVELOP LASTING RELATIONSHIPS: Hone in on the policy units, teams or divisions that are relevant to your work. Try to build connections and trust. Involve policy stakeholders from the outset of the research, not just at the findings stage and plan ways to keep in touch so they’re kept up-to-date and know you’re reliable.
- BE OPEN: You may need to rethink ways to formulate and carry out your research. It’s a different context – from timescales and language to priorities – and it may make you reconsider how you think about and define policy-relevant research, and maximise impact.
-
This blog was written as part of the work of the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research, within the ADR Scotland partnership, funded by UKRI/ESRC.
This article was published on 11 Sep 2019