Research Excellence Series talks 2025

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 explores the story of a unique research project from inception to methodology, dissemination and impact. These sessions are hosted by an eclectic range of speakers from across the research community.

Recordings from 2025 talks can be found on the ONS YouTube channel.

January

Immigration, geographic mobility and social mobility: insights from administrative data###\

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:

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

February

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

We were pleased to welcome Professor Katie Harron (University College London (UCL), Great Ormond Street (GOS) Institute of Child Health) from 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. 

March

How do firms cope with economic shocks in real time?

We were delighted to welcome Christina Palmou (Office for National Statistics) from the winning team 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. 

April

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

We were pleased to welcome Vincent Nguyen (UCL Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health) and Dr Sarah Beale (Institute of Health Informatics, University College, London) from 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.

May

Insights from linked data: school performance and criminal justice

We were delighted to welcome Dr Alice Wickersham (King's College London) 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 showcased work undertaken as part of a Research Fellowship funded by Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK). This introduced linked data from England's Department for Education (DfE) and Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and showed how these data allow important research into school performance and criminal justice.

June 

Taming the DRAGoN: building bridges to secure data access and collaboration

For June's talk we were delighted to welcome Damian Whittard from 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. 

July

Exploring the relationship between work and health using linked data

For July's talk, we were delighted to welcome Daniel Ayoubkhani (Office for National Statistics), the keynote speaker from the ONS Research Excellence Award 2024.

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

August

Understanding parole success following release from prison

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.

September

Enforced alcohol abstinence: does it reduce reoffending?

We were pleased to welcome Dr Carly Lightowlers (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.

October

Ethnic inequalities in sentencing: evidence from the Crown Court in England and Wales

We were pleased to welcome Dr Kitty Lymperopoulou (University of Plymouth), 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.

November

Ethnic differences in retirement wealth accumulation in the UK

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%.

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