DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-7332-11
title: Understanding Society: Innovation Panel, Waves 1-15, 2008-2022: Secure Access, National Grid Reference (Easting, Northing, OSGRDIND)
title: Understanding Society: Waves 1- , 2008-: Secure Access
title: United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study; UKHLS

description: &lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/span&gt; (UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex, and the survey research organisations Kantar Public and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;British Household Panel Survey&lt;/span&gt; (BHPS), which began in 1991.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For details of the main Understanding Society study, please see study number 6614.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;span&gt;Innovation Panel&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Innovation Panel&lt;/span&gt; is designed for experimental and methodological 
research relevant to longitudinal surveys. As far as practical its 
design, content, and data collection procedures are similar to the main 
stage &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/span&gt; survey. It is a multi-topic household survey
 representative of the population of Great Britain. Data collection 
takes place annually using computer assisted personal interviewing 
(CAPI) and web surveys. One person completes the household 
questionnaire. Each person aged 16 or older answers the individual adult
 interview, including and self-completion questionnaire. Young people 
aged 10 to 15 years are asked to respond to a paper self-completion 
questionnaire. The &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Innovation Panel&lt;/span&gt; has multiple experimental studies in
 which households or individuals are randomly assigned to a particular 
instrument or survey procedure. Experiments can relate to survey 
procedures, questionnaire design, or substantive social science 
questions. The experiments are described in the User Manual and in 
&lt;a href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/research/working-papers"&gt;Understanding Society Working Papers&lt;/a&gt;. Wave 12 included an experiment 
involving the collection of biomeasures by nurses, interviewers and 
respondents themselves. The biomeasures included in the experiment were:
 height, weight, blood pressure, venous and dried blood samples and hair
 samples. Biomarkers have been derived from the different blood and hair
 samples to compare analytes across sample types. Due to COVID-19, Waves 
13 and 14 were implemented using computer assisted telephone 
interviewing (CATI) and web surveys. Wave 15 included additional data on
 body measurements. Respondents were asked to install the BodyVolume app
 on their smartphone or tablet (iOS or Android) and use it after the 
interview to take two photos of themselves. The app used the body 
outlines along with profile information that the respondent entered in 
the app (age, sex, height, weight, level of activity) to calculate 
measures including waist and hip circumference, total body fat, visceral
 body fat, and lengths of different body parts.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Further information about the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Innovation Panel&lt;/span&gt; is also available on the main &lt;a href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/innovation-panel"&gt;Innovation Panel&lt;/a&gt; webpage&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Secure Access Dataset:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Understanding Society: Innovation Panel, Waves 1-15, 2008-2022&lt;/span&gt; 
dataset contains British National Grid postcode grid references (at 1m 
resolution) for each household surveyed, derived from the ONS National 
Statistics Postcode Directories (NSPD). Grid references are presented in
 terms of Eastings and Northings, which are distances in metres (east 
and north, respectively) from the origin (0,0), which lies to the west 
of the Scilly Isles. Each grid reference is given a positional quality 
indicator to denote the accuracy of the grid reference. In the majority 
of cases, the assigned grid reference relates to the building of the 
matched address closest to the postcode mean. No grid references are 
provided for postcodes in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Secure Access version of &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Understanding Society: Innovation Panel 
2008-2022&lt;/span&gt; includes all files in the Special Licence version, plus files 
containing the 3 variables relating to the National Grid Reference for 
each household: Easting, Northing and positional quality indicator 
(OSGRDIND). All other files are the same as in the Special Licence 
version, which is held under SN 7083.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Related UK Data Archive studies:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Secure Access version of the dataset has more restrictive access 
conditions than standard End User Licence or Special Licence access 
datasets (see 'Access' section). Further details and links to the less 
restrictive versions can be found on the &lt;a href="https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/series/series?id=2000053"&gt;Understanding Society series&lt;/a&gt; 
Key data page&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Co-funders&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In addition to the Economic and Social Research Council, co-funders for 
the study included the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department 
for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department of Culture, 
Media and Sport, the Department for Community and Local Government, the 
Department of Health, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly 
Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department of 
Environment and Rural Affairs, and the Food Standards Agency.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;International Data Access Network (IDAN)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; These data are now available to researchers based outside the UK. Selected UKDS SecureLab/controlled datasets from the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) and the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) have been made available under the International Data Access Network (IDAN) scheme, via a Safe Room access point at one of the UKDS IDAN partners. Prospective users should read the &lt;a href="https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/app/uploads/securelab-access-to-non-ons-data_idan.pdf"&gt;UKDS SecureLab application guide for non-ONS data for researchers outside of the UK via Safe Room Remote Desktop Access&lt;/a&gt;. Further details about the IDAN scheme can be found on the &lt;a href="https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/about/research-and-development/international-data-access-network-idan/"&gt;UKDS International Data Access Network&lt;/a&gt; webpage and on the &lt;a href="https://idan.network/"&gt;IDAN&lt;/a&gt; website.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Latest edition information&lt;/b&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the tenth edition (November 2023), Waves 14 and 15 have been 
deposited with accompanying documentation, and all previous waves 
redeposited with various corrections - see the documentation file 
'7332_ip_waves_1-13_changes_collated.pdf' for details of the changes.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;