On this page you can learn more about the upcoming awards for 2025 and the winning projects from 2024.
1. Background
Each year, around 300 projects gain approval to access the secure data held within the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Trusted Research Environments for statistical research; the Secure Research Service (SRS), or the Integrated Data Service (IDS). The research outcomes inform a diverse range of key 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.
Awards are decided by an independent judging panel made up of experts from across the research community.
2. ONS Research Excellence Awards 2025
We are pleased to announce that the ONS Research Excellence Awards 2025 are coming soon.
Applications open on 21 July 2025 and will remain open for eight weeks, so now is the perfect time to start preparing your submission. Whether you've led a groundbreaking project, collaborated across sectors, or developed new ways to link and use data, we want to hear from you.
This page will be updated soon with more details on the 2025 award categories and how to apply.
3. Winners of the ONS Research Excellence Awards 2024
Impact of Analysis Award
Joint winners:
Dr Katie Hunter, Manchester Metropolitan University
Project title: Understanding the intersections between ethnicity, care experience and youth justice involvement
This project uses newly linked administrative datasets from the Ministry of Justice and Department for Education to explore how children who have been in out of home care and children from racially minoritised backgrounds are disproportionately drawn into the youth justice system in England.
Read the highlighted publication on the ADR UK website to learn more.
Watch the related animation on YouTube.
Allen Joseph and Whitney Crenna-Jennings, Education Policy Institute
Project title: Early adult outcomes for suspended and excluded pupils
This research demonstrates that young people who are suspended during secondary school experience a range of poorer outcomes in late adolescence and early adulthood compared with their peers.
Read the highlighted publication from the Education Policy Institute to learn more.
Impact of Analysis Award – Collaboration with Government
Christina Palmou (Office for National Statistics), Jakob Schneebacher (Competition and Markets Authority) and Thiemo Fetzer (University of Warwick)
Project title: How do firms cope with economic shocks in real time?
This work builds a new toolbox, of high-frequency linked microdata, to estimate firm responses to economic shocks in near real-time.
Read the highlighted publication from the Competition and Markets Authority website to learn more.
Secure Data Creation Award
The ECHILD Team, Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health at University College London
Project title: Education and Child Health Insights from Linked Data (ECHILD)
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.
Learn more on the ECHILD website.
Organisational Excellence Award
The DRAGoN Team, University of the West of England Bristol
Project title: Data Research, Access and Governance Network (DRAGoN)
This is a multi-disciplinary research group that aims to bring together researchers and practitioners from academia, think-tanks, industry and government to help improve tools, operations and skills in relation to output checking in Trusted Research Environments.
Learn more on the DRAGoN website.
ADR UK Research Excellence Award
Dr Kitty Lymperopoulou, University of Plymouth
Project title: Ethnic inequalities in the Criminal Justice System
This research addresses knowledge gaps on wide ethnic disparities in the Criminal Justice System highlighted in recent government reports. It provides evidence on the extent and drivers of ethnic disparities, identifying effective ways of addressing them.
Read the highlighted publication from the British Journal of Criminology to learn more.
ONS People's Choice Award
The Virus Watch Team, University College London
Project title: Virus Watch
This work led to the creation of a new linked dataset in 2020, that provides evidence on which public health approaches are most effective in reducing transmission, and investigating community incidence, symptoms, and transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) in relation to population movement and behaviours. Learn more on the Virus Watch website.
4. More information
If you have any questions about the ONS Research Excellence Awards, please email IDS.Impact@ons.gov.uk.