New grant funding announced to support research in the public benefit

Key dates and Q&A session

Applications for the Accelerator Awards are open now. The deadline for applications is 3pm on Tuesday 20 February 2024. More information on how to apply can be found below.

RDS hosted an online Q&A session about the Accelerator Awards on Tuesday 30 January. Hosted by Rosie Seaman, Data Sourcing Manager, the session gave participants the chance to learn more about the awards and ask questions.

Watch a recording of the Q&A session.

Eligibility criteria

Accelerator Award applications will be assessed against the following criteria:

• Researchers must be part of an approved organisation
• Researchers must have up-to-date and approved information governance training
• The project is clearly defined, feasible, and demonstrates a clear public benefit (examples include but are not limited to: helping to better understand the health and care needs of populations or advancing understanding of the need for, or effectiveness of, preventative health and care measures for particular populations or conditions such as obesity and diabetes)
• The project utilises the linkage potential of the new pathway
• The project includes a reasonable justification for resources being requested within the scope of the funding available
• The applicant agrees to participate in user engagement activities to inform and shape improvements to the data linkage landscape in Scotland
• The applicant demonstrates a sound understanding of individual level linked data
• The applicant demonstrates sound commitment to sharing their experiences to inform future improvements to the data linkage landscape in Scotland 

RDS will consider applications for reasonable resources and timescales, funding up to a total of £25,000 per application. As part of the award, the standard data access cost will be waived, as a one-off. Data access costs therefore do not need to be included in the justification for resources.

The Researcher Access Service

Currently, ways of accessing public sector data for research in areas such as health, education, child protection and justice are extremely fragmented. From a researcher’s perspective, even simple requests are not straightforward, forcing people to work across multiple websites and follow often convoluted processes.

The Researcher Access Service will speed up and simplify this process through the creation of a digitised end-to-end pathway (including a portal for applicants to track the status of their application).

At launch, the Researcher Access Service will enable a new pathway for research projects with a study population and linkages from the following nine datasets only:

Full eligibility criteria and guidance notes on the datasets and variables that can be requested is available on the application form.

Interested in supporting the development of the Researcher Access Service and helping to develop and improve our work? Subscribe to our engagement contact list.

RDS is a not-for-profit charitable organisation created and funded by Scottish Government. We are a partnership between Scottish Government, leading universities and public bodies, such as Public Health Scotland (PHS) and National Records Scotland (NRS), working together to make it quicker and simpler to use public sector data for public good.

To hear about future funding opportunities at RDS, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on X (Twitter) and LinkedIn.

If you have any questions, please email info@researchdata.scot.