The next phase of our project is funded under the 2006 ESRC Census programme.
We are renaming ourselves to the Centre for Interaction Data Estimation and Research.
We see our role as developing from simply providing access to the interaction data sets to one of increasingly initiating and supporting research projects that use these data sets. One of the barriers to their use has been the fact that the data have been incomplete or incompatible with each other. Seemingly simple questions such as:
‘Do people commute over longer distances than they used to?’ or ‘Are people more likely to migrate than in the past?’ turn out to be hard to answer, due to differences in the source data.
Therefore, a lot of work that we have conducted has centred around the estimation of comparable data sets; we will continue to do this in order to aim research that makes comparisons over time.
Our objectives in this round include continuity of provision of service, improvements to the capabilities of the interface software, expanding the scope of the project to include important non-census based mobility data sets, and preparing for the 2011 census, and for those sources of data that might come after it.