Research England uses many different sets of data submitted by higher education providers for a variety of purposes. Our terms and conditions of Research England grant state that we require providers to submit quality and accurate data (section ‘Data assurance’). We therefore expect that the data we use will be the final version submitted and signed off as correct by the provider’s accountable officer.
However, sometimes errors are identified in the data after it has been signed off and after Research England have used the data. There is a data amendment process to assess whether Research England require amendments to be made, and whether and how we use amended data to change outcomes.
This data amendment process should only be used for HESA Higher Education – Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) returns.
We will only accept amendments to final submitted data in exceptional circumstances.
Data amendment process
Research England will assess data errors for amendment using information in an online form (an error summary) submitted by the provider.
To be accepted for amendment, an assessment process will be used to determine whether the amendment meets both of the following criteria:
- amendments relate to clear evidence of data error rather than re-interpretation of data (such as re-categorisation)
- errors are likely to have a material impact on our use of the data
When assessing errors in data, we will consider their effects on multiple purposes. Consequently, we may process amendments for one of our uses for the data without affecting other uses of the data.
Submitting error summaries
Data errors and amendments will be described in an online form, called an error summary, submitted by the provider. These can be created on a secure website which will use the access rights of user accounts of the Research England Data Portal.
Error summaries will contain information about the discovery and cause of errors alongside what the amendments should be. Contact information of the submitter will also be recorded.
The form will need to pass some validation checks before the error summary can be submitted. Once Research England receive the error summary some additional checking will be undertaken before it can be finalised for assessment.
Error summaries can be created and submitted at any time.
Users will need to be already registered on the Research England Data Portal to be able to create and submit error summaries. If users have not been registered, they will need to ask the nominated user administrator at their provider to create an account for them.
How we review amendments
Error summaries will be initially assessed by experts on the different uses of the data, who will provide recommendations as to whether the amendments would meet the criteria for their uses of the data.
The proposed amendments, alongside the recommendations, will then be reviewed by the data amendment process panel to determine whether to approve each recommendation and agree next steps.
Providers will be informed of the outcomes and will have an opportunity to raise concerns around agreed outcomes.
For further details, read the panel’s terms of reference.
Contact us
For general queries on the data amendments process, email us at: data_queries@re.ukri.org
Last updated: 14 February 2025