ECHILD team wins the prestigious ONS Research Excellence Award for Secure Data Creation 2024

The ECHILD team is thrilled to announce that we have been awarded the ONS Research Excellence Award 2024 in the category of Secure Data Creation. This prestigious recognition highlights our ground breaking efforts in creating and managing cross-government linked data to support impactful research in children’s education, health, and social care.

The ONS Research Excellence Awards celebrate outstanding achievements in data-driven research, focusing on excellence in methodology, innovation, and real-world impact. The Secure Data Creation category specifically honours advancements in linking and safeguarding sensitive data within the Trusted Research Environment managed by the ONS.

Judges praised the project for its ground breaking work, saying:

“The team have been working on this a very long time to get the health data connected to the education data. In such a difficult space, the UCL team have done such a great job at getting everyone in the same room to agree.”

The ECHILD project, developed by researchers at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, is a pioneering linked data resource that integrates administrative data across sectors from health and education. It represents the largest dataset of its kind, capturing information on over 20 million children in England from birth to adulthood. This dataset, the first to link health, education, and social care data for all children born in England since 1984, provides critical insights for shaping early-years policy and improving services for millions of children.

Judges highlighted the project’s emphasis on accessibility, noting:

“In terms of availability and accessibility, really important that this has been streamlined and that analysts are not waiting years to access important data for research.”

A key achievement of the project has been ensuring access to this resource for researchers across the UK. By enabling the safe and secure reuse of pseudonymised data, ECHILD not only fosters high-impact research but also eliminates the need for repeated linkage using personally identifiable information. This innovation delivers public value for money and reduces administrative burdens on government departments.

The judges also noted the dataset's potential:

“Though still early days, more people now starting to use this data. Significant potential impact from a novel powerful linked dataset.”

Currently, twenty research projects are in the application stages to access the ECHILD dataset to address public health challenges. These projects focus on themes such as mental health disparities, the impact of air quality on child health, and the long-term effects of early-life adversity on education. Alongside these, there are 47 projects either ongoing or in the planning stages that are accessing or engaging to access ECHILD. The range of proposed studies demonstrates the significant potential of the ECHILD dataset to provide critical insights for shaping policies that reduce inequalities, improve health services, and enhance outcomes for children across the UK.

We extend our deepest gratitude to the ONS team for their invaluable support in developing and managing the Trusted Research Environment. Their commitment to maintaining high standards of data security and accessibility has been instrumental in the success of the ECHILD project and its recognition at the ONS Research Excellence Awards.

This achievement reflects the collaborative efforts of our partners, NHS England and the Department for Education (DfE), and is made possible through funding from Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK), supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation.

We are especially grateful to the children, young people, parents, and carers who contributed to the ECHILD project, and we acknowledge the vital role of the children and families whose de-identified data underpin the research database.

For more details on the REA awards and other 2024 awardees please visit this link.