Understanding the Systemic and Institutional Barriers to the Employment of Big Data in Social Policy Research

The employment of big data in applied social science research holds significant promise in the planning and development of public services and to better understand social problems. Digitisation leads to more quantifiable components of daily life, and allows for the systematic study of areas of society not previously easily done (Bright, 2017). There are dangers to reliance on numbers alone to examine or explain social problems. However, linking data sets and understanding problems from a longitudinal perspective can provide important ‘jumping off’ points to gain deeper insight into social phenomena, plan and deliver social services, and identify systemic and institutional biases and discrimination (Halford and Savage, 2017).

While there has been significant investment in the development of relationships between data institutions, concerns around data protection, public attitudes towards data sharing and scepticism of social science scholars (Athey, 2017), all lead to barriers to the employment of big data to produce evidence bases for policy development.

Given the significant economic investment in developing the data sharing institutions (e.g. the Administrative Data Research Centre and Honest Broker Service), and the potential harm done by non-use of health data (Jones et al, 2017), it is imperative that solutions to these blockages are developed and implemented to make the most of this growing resource.

This PhD will use a relational and institutional approach to examining the issues related to non-use of big data in social policy research. Using case studies from across the UK, focusing on both successful and unsuccessful applications for the release of public data sets for research processes, the researcher will examine the systemic, cultural, and institutional barriers to social policy research using large, public data sets. It will include ethnographic research in data management institutions, interviews with key stakeholders, and document analysis to understand regulations and procedures.