How data-enhanced research leads to impact?
Finn Dymond-Green, Service Director for Impact
Finn Dymond-Green discusses how our impact team is developing understanding of what data impact looks like, and introduces our newest impact theme.
How do we know what impact data in the UK Data Service collection has?
The UK Data Service has been a leader in the field israel rcs data of data impact for some years. As the government-funded ‘library’ where data producers deposit their data and researchers access and use the data, we sit in a unique position to develop an understanding of what we call the ‘golden thread of impact’ – a line that connects from the data through the research it underpins into change in policy, practice, behaviours or more.
Recent examples include working with The Children’s Society to understand the impact of data used in their Good Childhood Report. The research on children’s wellbeing, using data from Understanding Society, directly informs The Children’s Society’s work to reduce a damaging decline in children’s wellbeing by 2030.
Of course, research doesn’t happen in a vacuum. People build on the work of others while others build on theirs. As time goes on, researchers develop their own body of work, developing concepts and hypotheses they have investigated, analysed and evaluated.