What You Need to Know: ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative

Or do you have a better idea about using the data? 
Photo by Franki Chamaki on Unsplash

The ESRC’s Secondary Data Analysis Initiative might not win any awards for ease of verbal articulation, but it does “do exactly what it says on the tin”. Sarah Tetley hears more from Tina Haux about the scheme, and what academics need to do if they want to be successful.

ESRC Opens Secondary Data Initiative

Last June I wrote about how the ESRC was going to implement its Delivery Plan. Yesterday news came through about one arm of this implementation: the Secondary Data Initiative. As you will doubtless remember, the ESRC scrapped its Small Grants scheme, with the exception of this Initiative. Backed by £10.8 million funding, it will offer grants of up to £200k to exploit major data resources that the ESRC and other agencies had already created.

These include cohort studies, the British Household Panel Survey, Understanding Society, census datasets, and the European Social Survey. In this first phase they will only be funding 20 or so projects, but if your research uses these or other sources of existing data, it's worth considering putting together an application. The deadline is 19 April; get in touch if you want any help with putting together an application.