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New funding for CDRC

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The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has awarded the Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) generous funding to continue its work until 2024. Matched contributions from ESRC and the University of Leeds will provide £5 million in financial support over the five year extension period. 

The national multi-million pound Centre which was established in 2014 and which is based at the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics, creates, sources and maintains data for a wide range of users, working with private and public data suppliers to ensure the efficient and safe use of data in social science research. In its next phase, the CDRC will continue to generate impactful research around the themes of consumption and lifestyles as well as introducing new and ambitious strands of activity around innovation and methods. It will also continue to collaborate closely with a growing list of industry partners in an effort to free up consumer data for scientific research and in a bid to tackle a wide range of social and environmental challenges.

The CDRC’s latest award is part of a new ESRC initiative to provide follow-on ‘ transition funding‘ to existing centres to ensure they can continue to generate pioneering research and to influence policy and practice. CDRC along with seven other centres received a total of £6.9 million in ESRC funds aimed at maximising centre investment to date and in supporting longer-term self-sustainability.

Professor Jennifer Rubin, ESRC’s Executive Chair said: “We are delighted that these nine centres have secured transitional funding. The breadth of social science that these centres of excellence encompass illustrates the strength of UK social science. This funding will support these centres and help set them on a path to long term sustainability. This model for funding social science research centres in partnership with research organisations in the UK recognises their strategic and financial benefits and their potential for making a contribution to better lives nationally and internationally.”