Table of Contents
What is a household panel study?
What is the purpose of the study?
Why have I been invited to participate?
Do I have to take part?
What will happen to me if I take part?
You can read a leaflet introducing Understanding Society here. If you would prefer to read this leaflet in Welsh, you can download it here.
What are the benefits of taking part?
Each person in the household who takes part will receive a Love2shop giftcard. As a member of Understanding Society you will also be kept informed about study findings and research updates.
By taking part, you are helping to create a record of how life in the UK is changing and what impact those changes have on you and the other people you live with. For example, how a new job or baby affects your health and wellbeing, your financial circumstances and personal relationships a year or two years later.
What information will be collected?
The interview covers some of the key areas of your life such as health, employment, retirement, personal relationships, friends and family, childcare, and leisure activities. The results of the study will be used for research purposes only. You can ask to see your details at any time or to have them removed from our database. The data is and will remain anonymous – it will be impossible for anyone to identify you or your household from the study’s results.
Will my information be kept confidential?
Understanding Society is managed in accordance with the Data Projection Act and GDPR legislation. We are always extremely careful to protect the confidentiality of the information you give us. Your survey answers are always anonymised. Your personal details such as name, address and date of birth are removed, so that you cannot be identified.
Your anonymised information is combined with the tens of thousands of survey answers from other Understanding Society participants and is securely deposited in the UK Data Archive, which is based at the University of Essex. It is also made available to researchers through the UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC) – the national Trusted Research Environment for data linkage in longitudinal research. Social researchers can register with the UK Data Archive or the UK LLC to use Understanding Society data. Understanding Society data can only be used for genuine social research that can demonstrate public interest and not just be used for commercial gain. Your details are never made available to researchers or other companies who might use them for marketing purposes. However, if you tell us something that makes us worried about your safety or the safety of others in your household, we may have to discuss this with somebody else as we need to be sure you are safe.
If you have any questions about the security of your personal details, please email iserdpq@essex.ac.uk
What is the legal basis for using the data?
In addition to the Data Protection Act, the Institute for Social and Economic Research, which hosts Understanding Society, has ISO-27001 certification. This requires the study to have a wide set of rules and regulations about how we manage data.
As well as having our information security management procedures documented, we are also independently audited annually and have to undergo re-certification every three years to make sure that we are following the requirements of the standard. Our fieldwork partners – Verian and NatCen Social Research – have also achieved ISO-27001 certification for Information Security Management Systems. These procedures ensure that all efforts are taken to maintain the security of your data.
The Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex is the data controller for the study. Please contact the University Information Assurance Manager (dpo@essex.ac.uk) if you have any questions. The fieldwork for the study is contracted to Verian and NatCen Social Research, who act as the data processors.
Since the Understanding Society study is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and both the ESRC and the University of Essex are Public Bodies, we use Public Task as the lawful basis for processing this data. Data are not transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA), to ensure that they are protected by the strong EEA data protection laws. Our compliance with all the relevant legislation, and our externally certified accreditation to the international ISO27001 standard, provide you with assurance that your data is secured and protected in the strongest possible manner.
What should I do if I want to take part?
You do not need to do anything if you would like to take part in the study. Our fieldwork partners, Verian or the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), will be in touch with further information about how you can take part.
What will happen to the data?
The answers you give us to the survey are securely transferred from Verian/Natcen to the Institute for Social and Economic Research, using an encrypted online portal. To preserve your anonymity, personal details (your name, date of birth, address) are removed from the survey data and held securely in an encrypted database to which only a small number of people have access. Your survey answers are put together with the answers from thousands of other participants and, in an anonymised format, are deposited with the UK Data Service and UK LLC. There is no information in the data which can identify you.
Any analysis is done on the whole sample, and results are often quoted in terms of specific percentages of people and are not reported as individual answers. The collected survey responses are made available, through the UK Data Service or UK LLC, to academic researchers who must register with the Data Service or UK LLC.
Who is funding the research?
Understanding Society is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and a consortium of government departments, Scientific leadership is provided by he Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex. The ESRC is the UK’s largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and civil society.
Who has reviewed the study?
The Understanding Society study has been approved by the University of Essex Ethics Committee. The committee reviews the questionnaire and all of the participant documents.
Concerns and Complaints
If you have any concerns about any aspect of the study, or you have a complaint, in the first instance please contact us on Freephone 0800 252 853 or by email contact@understandingsociety.ac.uk. They will pass the information onto the principal investigator of the project, Professor Michaela Benzeval.
If are still concerned, or if you think your complaint has not been addressed to your satisfaction, or you feel that you cannot approach the principal investigator, please contact the departmental Director of Research in the department responsible for this project, Professor Paul Clarke, pclarke@essex.ac.uk.
If you are still not satisfied, please contact the University’s Research Governance and Planning Manager, Mantalena Sotiriadou, ms21994@essex.ac.uk. Please include the ERAMS reference: ETH2021-2104.
More FAQs
If you’d like more information, please see our FAQs page