About LSCS

What we do

The Longitudinal Studies Centre Scotland focuses on projects which link data over time to produce a unique set of longitudinal research resources. It is our aim to become an internationally renowned centre for longitudinal data development and analysis.

How are we funded?

Initially funded by the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council (SFC) and the Chief Scientist Office (CSO), the LSCS was established in 2001 by Prof Paul Boyle at St Andrews University. Since then our work has been funded by the ESRC/UKRI.  The Centre is directed by Prof Chris Dibben.

Past & Present

In the Centre’s early years the focus was on the creation of the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), a task involving a painstaking process of digitising paper census records, building the population spine of the study and developing the governance framework required for it to function.  The SLS data was launched for research in 2007, containing the 1991 and 2001 censuses linked to administrative data and vital event registrations. Since then the SLS Development and Support Unit (SLS-DSU) was established to maintain, extend and support the SLS dataset.  This has included the not insignificant task of building the linkage to Census 2011 data and the currently in progress linkage to the 2021 Census.

In 2012, the LSCS was successful in attracting ESRC funding for Digitising Scotland, a highly ambitious and exciting project aiming to digitise and link inter-generationally all of the approximate 24 million vital events registered in Scotland since 1855. This groundbreaking work has created a unique dataset allowing the exploration of new and exciting research questions for the first time in the UK.

Recent years have seen the evolution of the UKcenLS – a collaboration of the 3 longitudinal sister studies: the England & Wales Longitudinal Study (ONS CeLSIUS), the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS), and the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS) (see CALLS Hub website).

Location

The LSCS is based at the University of Edinburgh, home to the SLS-DSU.  We reside in The National Records of Scotland, New Register House, 3 West Register Street, Edinburgh, EH1 3YT.  We also have  collaborations with University College London and University of Cambridge (Digitising Scotland).

Explore this site to find out a little more about the projects we support and our team of researchers.