The Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK), an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) hosted programme, was launched in 2018 and is a UK-wide data-linking and research project that has helped government better address public health, justice, economic and social care issues.

ADR UK seeks to unlock public sector data to provide insights and drive policy improvements, and does this by facilitating secure access for accredited researchers to that data, unlocking evidence that would otherwise remain hidden.

In the next investment phase, ADR UK will be supporting research to improve cancer detection using health and administrative data, through the Cancer Data Driven Detection programme in partnership with Cancer Research UK.

The funding will also inform policies to help drive economic growth and improve living standards by helping ADR UK to further expand the linked economic datasets available to researchers and policymakers.

These will support critical research to better understand the drivers of UK productivity by linking employment, business, benefits and income data, giving policymakers a more complete picture of how the UK economy works.

Following the funding decision, the programme is now confirming its national partnerships of ADR England, ADR Scotland, ADR Wales and ADR Northern Ireland, and will also continue funding for the Office for National Statistics Secure Research Service.

Stian Westlake, executive chair at ESRC, said: “Our £168m investment in ADR UK is a sign of UKRI’s commitment to harnessing data to drive economic growth, better public services and outstanding research.

“Linking government social, economic and health data in a secure manner that preserves citizens’ privacy is a powerful driver of better research and better public policy, and a vital resource for the scientists and researchers in the UK and beyond.”

Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle said: “Data is absolutely vital when making key policy decisions to help transform lives for the better, and the ADR UK partnership has shown that in practice, from helping to secure pay rises for millions, smashing the glass ceiling for underrepresented groups and cracking down on crime that blights our streets.

“By investing £168m of government funding to extend this programme, we are backing our world class researchers to build on this work, unlocking more of the data they need to improve lives and deliver the economic growth and opportunity as part of our Plan for Change.”