The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Research Excellence Awards 2024 are now open. On this page you can learn more about this year’s award categories, eligibility criteria and the previous winners.
1. Background
Each year, around 300 projects gain approval to access the secure data held within ONS Trusted Research Environments for statistical research. The research outcomes inform a diverse range of important 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.
For the first time, this year's awards will accept submissions from research projects carried out within the Integrated Data Service (IDS). The IDS is a cross-government project, with the ONS leading on its delivery, working closely with partners across government, the devolved administrations and the research community.
Awards will be decided by an independent judging panel made up of experts from across the research community. Learn more about the judges on this webpage.
Award winners will be invited to attend our virtual Research Excellence Awards event and ceremony on Wednesday 4 December 2024, presented by a senior ONS representative.
2. Awards
This year, we are delighted to offer six Award categories.
Impact of Analysis Award
Nominations should include clear examples of how the research project has demonstrated excellence in methodology, collaboration, communication and presentation of research, and public benefit or impact. This research should have used data already, or intended to be, available in a Trusted Research Environment managed by the ONS, the Secure Research Service (SRS) or the IDS.
Impact of Analysis Award - Collaboration with Government
Nominations should include clear involvement of at least one UK government department and/or devolved administration(s) in at least one main stage of the research process. This research should have used data already, or intended to be, available in a Trusted Research Environment managed by the ONS, the SRS or the IDS.
They should also include clear examples of how the research project has demonstrated excellence in methodology, communication and presentation of research, and public benefit or impact. Nominations for any researcher or analyst within a government department must show evidence of collaboration with a separate department other than their own.
Secure Data Creation Award
Nominations should include clear evidence of the creation, linkage or engineering of, or improvement to, the accessibility, availability or functionality of secure data already, or intended to be, available in a Trusted Research Environment managed by the ONS, the SRS or the IDS.
Organisational Excellence Award
In order to apply for this award, nominated organisations should provide examples of how they have facilitated or enabled access to secure data provided by the Trusted Research Environments managed by the ONS, the SRS or the IDS.
Examples include, but are not limited to, enabling connectivity, provision of safe environments, security training, and support with Digital Economy Act accreditation.
ADR UK Research Excellence Award
This award recognises innovative and impactful research funded by Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK). Your work should have been funded by ADR UK, for example, through their fellowship or PhD studentship programmes. You must have been the principal analyst on the Accredited Project, but not necessarily the Nominated Project Lead.
This award is open to research carried out in any of the ADR UK-supported Trusted Research Environments. This includes the SRS, the IDS, the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank and the Scottish National Safe Haven.
ONS People's Choice Award
All eligible entries will automatically be entered into the People's Choice Award, which will be open to all to cast their votes.
You may apply for more than one category, but it is likely we will limit the number of awards an applicant can win. For any eligibility enquiries please contact the ONS Research Excellence Awards team
3. Evaluation criteria
The evaluation criteria were developed from the Research Excellence Framework and include:
methodology
collaboration
communication and presentation of research
public benefit and impact
availability and accessibility of data
These criteria, and their weighting, differ for each award. Please find out more within the application form.
For any enquiries about the evaluation criteria please contact the ONS Research Excellence Awards team.
4. Applying
Applying for the ONS Research Excellence Awards is simple. You can submit an application via our easy-to-use online application form, which enables you to complete the sections relevant to your submission, offering comprehensive guidance along the way.
Please submit your application before midnight on Friday 18 October 2024.
If you have any questions about the awards, or would like further information, please email us.
5. Meet the 2024 Judging Panel
The judging panel for the 2024 ONS Research Excellence Awards will include a diverse range of expertise to evaluate your submissions, bringing with them experience from across the research community.
Julian McCrae
Julian leads the Integrated Data Service (IDS) Strategy at the Office for National Statistics. He is responsible for ensuring the emerging Service meets its core goal - the greater availability of ready-to-use linked data for public good analysis.
He began his career at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), where he led the IFS' research programme on corporate taxation. In other roles he has taught public economics at University College London and helped expand the public policy practice at Frontier Economics.
Julian has held the position of Deputy Director of the Institute for Government as well as Deputy Director of the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. Julian's experience in government also includes two spells at the Treasury, and a period at the Department for Work and Pensions.
Emily Oliver
Emily is responsible for leading on training and capacity building activities within the ADR UK Strategic Hub to drive up the use of administrative data for research.
By engaging with stakeholders including data owners across Whitehall departments, researchers and supervisors, and with those working within Trusted Research Environments, she has devised a training strategy comprising courses led by experts, online resources, and ADR UK's first cohort of PhD studentships.
In addition, she chairs a cross-organisational Synthetic Data Working Group and is coordinating a suite of projects exploring synthetic data as a tool for smoothing the researcher journey to using administrative data.
Prabhat Vaze
Prabhat has over 20 years experience as an economist working in consultancy, government departments and academia. His areas of expertise are analysis for programme and project management, strategy development, economic appraisal and evaluation of policies using complex datasets. He has worked in productivity economics, defence, transport and official statistics. His studies using the ONS Secure Research Service have focused on evaluating policies to support businesses.
Before setting up Belmana, during a decade in the UK senior civil service, Prabhat was Director of Analysis at the Ministry of Defence, Chief Economist at the Office for National Statistics and senior economist at the Department for Transport.
Tom Jackson
Tom has previously worked as a government social researcher at the Ministry of Justice, where his team won the Linked Administrative Data Award at the ONS' Research Excellence Awards in 2022.
This work used linked administrative datasets from across the justice system and with other government departments to provide powerful new insights on justice system users, their pathways, and outcomes across a range of public services. Tom now works at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as a climate change monitoring and evaluation adviser.
Graham Knox
Graham is head of the Data Services Unit within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). His teams support the data needs of DWP analysts, and lead on data sharing for research.
He's been a Government Statistician for over 20 years, having spent much of his career in the Department for Education (DfE) and DWP.
Graham has carried out more traditional Statistician-type roles but now spends more of his time focussing on wider data sharing and how we can enable access to DWP data for research, working closely with data sharing colleagues across Government, the ONS and ADR UK.
6. Examples of previous award winners
For our 2022 Research Excellence Awards, we awarded four innovative and diverse research projects across five awards. You can familiarise yourself with some of these before applying.
Research Excellence Award and People's Choice Award winner
Professor Sinead Langan and colleagues, Department of Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology and Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
Read more about The COVID-19 Schools Infection Survey in England
Cross-government Analysis Award winner
Dr Becky Arnold and colleagues, University of Keele and UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Read more about Controlling the spread of COVID-19 in vulnerable settings
Linked Administrative Data Award winner
Professor Andromachi Tseloni, Tom Jackson and colleagues, Nottingham Trent University and Ministry of Justice (MoJ).
Read more about Data First: Criminal Courts Linked Data; an exploratory analysis of returning defendants and the potential of linked criminal courts data from 2011 to 2019 in England and Wales (PDF, 2.41MB)
Early Career Research Award winner
Dr Nicolas Libuy, University College London (UCL).
Read more about Gestational age at birth, chronic conditions, and school outcomes: a population-based data linkage study of children born in England