Research Data Centres: The role of brokers for negotiating access to data

Detailed and confidential data collected by government agencies have traditionally been difficult to access by analysts and researchers, despite the advantages to society from doing so. Access has, until recently, been constrained by technological and legal barriers; however, developments have reduced the impact of these. Despite these developments, accessing detailed, and confidential data, for analysis and research, remains difficult. However, Research Data Centres (RDCs) provide a solution to reassure and efficiently distribute the risk of providing access to these data sources. This paper explains how RDCs can act as a ‘broker’ for enabling access to confidential data sources.