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Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS)

Co-funded with the ESRC, ESDS provides access and support for an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, spanning many disciplines and themes. ESDS Government includes the large-scale government surveys; ESDS International includes a range of international macro data; ESDS Longitudinal supports key UK longitudinal data collections, and ESDS Qualidata provides enhanced access and support for a range of multimedia social science qualitative datasets.

ESDS Government Surveys

The large-scale government surveys, such as the General Household Survey and the Labour Force Survey are key data resources for social science researchers. The surveys that ESDS Government supports are:

  • Labour Force Surveys / Northern Ireland Labour Force Survey
  • General Household Survey / Continuous Household Survey (Northern Ireland)
  • Family Expenditure Survey / Northern Ireland Family Expenditure Survey
  • National Food Survey / Expenditure and Food Survey (new combined National Food Survey and Family Expenditure Survey)
  • Family Resources Survey
  • ONS Omnibus Survey
  • Survey of English Housing
  • Health Survey for England / Welsh Health Survey / Scottish Health Survey
  • British Crime Survey / Scottish Crime Survey
  • British Social Attitudes / Scottish Social Attitudes / Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (and the former Northern Ireland Social Attitudes) / Young People's Social Attitudes (periodic offshoot of the BSA)
  • National Travel Survey
  • Time Use Survey

ESDS International

ESDS International provides access to, and support for, a range of international datasets - both macro and micro sources. The service aims to promote and facilitate increased and more effective use of international datasets in research, learning and teaching across a range of disciplines.

Macro datasets:

  • OECD data
  • National Statistics Time Series Data
  • UNIDO Databases
  • IMF Statistics
  • World Bank data
  • United Nations data
  • Key Indicators of the Labour Market
  • Eurostat New Cronos data
  • International Energy Agency datasets

Micro datasets:

  • Eurobarometers
  • European Social Survey
  • International Social Survey Programme
  • World Values Surveys and European Values Surveys
  • European Election Study datasets

Please visit the ESDS International website for more information on these resources.

ESDS Longitudinal

The service currently provides a web-based download service, specialist user support (that also links up with specialist support provided by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS)), training and workshops and a range of value-added data enhancements for the following longitudinal data collections:

  • British Cohort Study (BCS70)
  • British Household Panel Survey (BHPS)
  • Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)
  • National Child Development Survey (NCDS)

ESDS Qualidata

ESDS Qualidata is a specialist service of the ESDS led by the UK Data Archive (UKDA) at the University of Essex. The service provides access and support for a range of social science qualitative datasets, promoting and facilitating increased and more effective use of data in research, learning and teaching. The work builds on Qualidata's expertise and international reputation in this area.

Please visit the ESDS web site for more information on this resource