Written by Emma Gordon
This year’s ADR UK Conference 2025 felt like a milestone. From the packed pre-conference programme through to the final keynote, there was a real sense of momentum: administrative data research has matured, but its potential is still only beginning to be realised.
Building energy before the main event
Two dynamic pre-conference activities set the tone. The Datathon, hosted by ADR Wales and Datacise Open Learning, saw multidisciplinary teams use synthetic data from SAIL Databank to explore children’s mental health and the educational attainment of cared for children.
What struck me was both the scientific rigour and innovative use of coding that all the teams were able to bring to their projects – that were all designed to answer a real policy question – even when working with synthetic data.
Alongside this, workshops on everything from policy impact to metadata created a strong sense of connection before the main event had even begun. By the time the conference officially opened, it already felt like a community primed for collaboration.
Learning from international leadership
Day one featured international thought leaders pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with administrative data. Tom Emery, Executive Director of ODISSEI, introduced the Dutch model of an architecture built on persistent identifiers, federated infrastructures, strong computational capacity, and the integration of survey with administrative data. The scale and coherence of this system is inspiring, yet Tom also reminded us that history also shows how data can be abused – most chillingly in the Netherlands during the Holocaust. When it comes to the use of administrative data, safeguards and a focus on the public good are non-negotiable.
Helena Benes Matos da Silva’s work at Cidacs in Brazil offered another striking example. The “100 Million Brazilians” and birth cohort studies show how integrating social, health and environmental data can capture harder-to-reach populations, generate evidence for policy, and highlight health inequalities across groups. This work demonstrates administrative data at its most powerful: revealing inequities and informing action, whether in addressing long-term disparities or responding to health emergencies like Zika virus.
