I’m not going to be any less interested in social science data and services, and I’m sure there will be times when I’m frustrated that I won’t have all the same channels to get things done.
I’m especially going to miss working directly with people turkey rcs data within the UK Data Service family who have in some cases been my colleagues for over 20 years!
Care to give us any clues about what you anticipate coming next?
For the last two decades the UK has been seriously discussing ways of replacing the decennial census with more continuously updated population data from a variety of administrative and survey sources. Having come so far, it really does seem that we are on the verge of a step change, and once the 2021/22 results are complete, the concept of the traditional census dataset will increasingly be seen as part of continuously developing population data system.
And what are your own plans once you step down from the Service?
I will be continuing as a co-director of ESRC’s National Centre for Research Methods and am involved in ongoing projects with ONS and Ordnance Survey, as well as an exciting new geospatial initiative at the University of Southampton, so still expect to be very active in areas not far from UK Data Service interests!