U.S. Department of Commerce: Administrative Data and Data Linkages Research Program

The Bureau of Commerce (BOC) is soliciting applications to support research that improves measurement of the U.S. population and economy. Policy makers, city planners, teachers, and researchers use data gathered by BOC. Applications are sought to improve the production and availability of statistics that inform public policy. The BOC wishes to promote the development of improvements to existing methods of data documentation and linkage techniques, systems of governance for data access, privacy protection for the individuals and businesses in the administrative data, and secure access to these data to produce statistics for the public. The resulting data resources will improve U.S. policymaking, urban planning, economic development, and program administration by providing quality, unbiased data to support reasoned, disciplined decisions.

Applicants should clearly identify the program priori(ties) within the application and provide a demonstrable link between the identified priority and proposed methodologies and outcome goals in how they can support innovation and the development of improvements to existing methods and statistical products. Program priorities include:

1. Improvements to existing methods for data discovery, specifically the production, storage, and dissemination of metadata for administrative data, including but not limited to: methods to automate metadata production for federal and state administrative files upon ingest, tagging existing metadata to improve data discovery, and harmonizing key fields across administrative data (e.g., sex, race), and developing foundational files to support linkages of historical population data.
2. Improvements to data capture and linkage methods using administrative data, including but not limited to: methods to digitize, standardize, and integrate entities across files and over time; robust, privacy-preserving linkages are sought for person matching, innovative methods for spatial linkages (e.g., comparing spatial linkages between communities in urban areas, enhancing survey data by linking it to geospatial data to estimating energy usage patterns within a building); and enabling and improving linkages of historical population data.
3. Improvements to existing methods for evidence building, including but not limited to innovative new information products; identifying new data sources; building evidence with new sources (e.g. producing population-level data on group or community attributes, and individual level measures of socio-economic status).
4. Improvements to existing methods of data governance for researchers and evaluators, promoting innovations and creative solutions that accommodate a large and unknown volume of proposals and proposals with a wide range of subject matter and methods.
5. Improvements to existing methods that protect privacy, avoiding the release of any information that would identify an individual or business in public statistics.

Amount: Up to $5,000,000 is available for awards ranging from $100,000-$1,000,000 per year.

Eligibility: Institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations.

Link: http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=286535

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