We aim to share data from the DMP survey with researchers in order to increase the impact of the survey, but in a way that preserves the confidentiality of the data.
Aggregated data from the survey are published each month on the Bank of England’s website. These data are freely available to be used in research projects, but should be cited appropriately.
An anonymised version of the DMP microdata is also now available to researchers via the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Secure Research Service.
Researchers wishing to access the data in this way should apply for an accredited research project via the ONS website. Project applications, research outputs and publications will need to be approved by both the ONS and Bank of England. This will work via the usual SRS approvals process.
All projects using the DMP data should be for the public good and should help the Bank of England to fulfil its functions. The data will only be made available for non-commercial reasons to academics, Bank/government economists and others in similar roles.
Data will be made available for research projects providing that they: (i) maintain the confidentiality of the data; and (ii) do not significantly overlap with ongoing projects that the DMP team are working on/planning on at the point the proposal is submitted.
Permission to use a dataset for one project does not automatically give researchers the right to use the same dataset for another project, so they must obtain a new approval when starting a new project with the same dataset or if they propose to materially alter the direction of the research from the original proposal.
(i) Further information on confidentiality:
To ensure that the confidentiality of the DMP data is maintained, the DMP microdata data made available to researchers will be anonymised and will be available with a lag of around six months.
Access will be via the ONS’s Secure Research Service (SRS). The SRS is a safe and secure environment, it has stringent controls and is only available to accredited researchers.
To help preserve anonymity, some variables in the SRS version of the DMP data will be banded, and others that are hard to fully anonymise will be removed entirely. There will be no personal data in this dataset.
It will not be possible to match the DMP data to non-ONS datasets where the researcher could know the identity of the firms in the dataset that they are matching to.
(ii) Further information on the relationship with DMP team research:
The DMP team invest significant time and effort into running the DMP survey and collecting the data and ESRC funding for the survey is linked to research outputs. The DMP team will only therefore approve projects that do not have a significant overlap with projects that the DMP team are working on or planning.
More details on existing projects using DMP microdata are available here.
Once a DMP team project has been published in an academic journal, proposals to work on similar project, or projects that may replicate/extend/challenge the DMP team work will typically be approved.
Please contact Phil Bunn (Philip.Bunn@bankofengland.co.uk, 020 3461 3096), if you have any questions or require further information.