Researchers in Edinburgh have been awarded a £3 million funding boost to operate a new financial data service – which aims to provide ‘unprecedented insights into the economic health of the UK’.
Smart Data Foundry – a subsidiary of the University of Edinburgh – will use the grant to spearhead research into the financial wellbeing of millions of consumers and households across the UK.
Funded by Smart Data Research UK – part of UK Research Research & Innovation (UKRI) – the SDF venture will be based at the Edinburgh Futures Institute and will join a network of five other data services across the country.
The FDS will enable more researchers to study the financial health of millions of households across the UK, by providing secure access to financial behaviours, economic resilience, and regional economic activity. The data used by researchers will be ‘de-identified’, meaning no personal financial information will be accessed.
Together, they will put the UK at the forefront of smart data research and innovation, providing safe and efficient ways for researchers to access and use the smart data generated through everyday interactions with the digital world, including via mobile apps, navigation systems, social media and shopping.
Since its establishment in 2022, SDF has earned national recognition for its work using anonymised financial data for public good, including research in partnership with NatWest Group into how Covid-19 affected how people earned, spent and saved during and post pandemic and its work with Sage and CEBR on their quarterly SME tracker.
Dougie Robb, SDF’s Interim CEO, pictured below, said: “We look forward to joining five of the most forward-thinking data service organisations in the UK in this groundbreaking network. It will foster data sharing partnerships between academia, public institutions and private enterprise leading to public good outcomes which will improve the lives of people across the UK.
“In partnership with the University of Edinburgh (UoE) we’ve made great progress in holding and making available for public benefit research financial data resources. We have forged fruitful data partnerships with NatWest Group, Virgin Money, SAGE, and Equifax, and built a team of transdisciplinary experts with expertise across finance, banking, digital technology, product, data science, and information governance.”
Professor Chris Dibben added: “Understanding the financial situation of households across the UK is a vitally important for social and economic research. However this key aspect of economic life is often poorly measured in our research datasets or even absent. This investment by Smart Data Research UK in a Financial Data Service will allow us to change this situation, enabling more public benefit social and economic policy research. I am really excited to be working with Smart Data Foundry and SDR UK to deliver this significant new resource over the next three years.”
EPCC, the University of Edinburgh’s supercomputing centre, operates the Safe Haven Services for Smart Data Foundry. Dr Jano van Hemert, director of data services, EPCC, said: “We look forward to partnering in this project to enhance these services and enable more researchers to access financial data.”
