The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) is a national data service providing access and support for an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, spanning many disciplines and themes. ESDS provides an integrated service offering enhanced support for the secondary use of data across the research, learning and teaching communities.

The Economic and Social Data Service is a national data archiving and dissemination service jointly-funded initiative sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).

The ESDS is a distributed service, based on a collaboration between four key centres of expertise who work collaboratively to provide preservation, dissemination, user support and training for an extensive range of key economic and social data, both quantitative and qualitative, spanning many disciplines and themes. The ESDS offers enhanced support for the secondary use of data across the research, learning and teaching communities.

Archive contribution

The UK Data Archive co-ordinates this service from the University of Essex and runs three of the dedicated support services: ESDS Access and Preservation (the hub of the archiving and data delivery activities), ESDS Qualidata and ESDS Longitudinal.  It also contributes to ESDS Government and ESDS International in supporting international microdata. Partners are the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex, Manchester Information and Associated Services (Mimas) at the University of Manchester and the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research (CCSR) at the University of Manchester.

Principal investigator:  Kevin Schürer
Funder: ESRC, JISC
Dates: January 2003
Contact:  ESDS help desk
Links:  Economic and Social Data Service