School of Geography & Geosciences
Department of Geography & Sustainable Development

The Administrative Data Liaison Service (ADLS) is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to support administrative data based research in the UK. Administrative data in the UK is extensive but remains a relatively undiscovered and underused tool for research. It has enormous potential to inform social scientific research, either directly through analysis of such data or through linkage to other datasets.

The service is managed by the University of St Andrews, in conjunction with the Universities of Oxford and Manchester. Together, the ADLS team provides expertise in the research uses of administrative data, legal and ethical research, data security, disclosure risks and data linkage.

For further details, visit the Administrative Data Liaison Service (ADLS) website.

The Centre for GeoInformatics will act as a focus for research into geoinformatics across both the School of Geography & Geosciences and across the university. Geoinformatics or Geographic Information Science (GIScience) involves the collection, processing, analysis and display of large spatial data sets. This includes any kind of spatial data, i.e. data with specific geographic location, or, if time is considered as well, spatio-temporal data. The area is becoming more and more relevant in today's world, where large spatial data sets are being collected by individuals in real-time using increasingly available and ubiquitous spatial sensors such as GPS devices on mobile phones, as well as agencies and companies, e.g. census data collected by national statistical agencies or satellite imagery collected by national space agencies or remote sensing companies. Application areas include but are not limited to health, housing, environment, urban analysis, digital humanities and physical systems.

For further details, visit the Centre for GeoInformatics (CGI) website

The Centre for Housing Research was established in 1990 to engage in policy relevant research both independently and in conjunction with public and voluntary housing agencies. The main research activities of the Centre focused on the role of housing associations and local authorities in the provision of social housing and supported housing. CHR has evolved in scope and scale since its foundation two decades ago. Through that period it has become the largest applied research Centre and income earner within the School of Geography and Geosciences. Across Scotland and the UK the formal complement of CHR makes it one of the largest housing research centres in Britain. The CHR is now one of the foremost depositories for data on social housing in England and Scotland. The Centre also has a track record in research on homelessness, housing affordability, residential mobility and migration and their impact on neighbourhoods and local communities.

CHR's five main workstreams or themes are: 1) Developing Data Systems: Data and Evidence for Housing Policies; 2) Housing Systems and their Economic Impact; 3) The Changing Ownership and Organisation of Social Housing; 4) Neighbourhood Dynamics and Effects; 5) Housing and Sustainability.

For further details, visit the Centre for Housing Research (CHR) website.

The Centre for Interaction Data Estimation and Research is one of the support centres for the UK Census data and is funded as part of the ESRC Census of Population Programme. It has the specific remit of providing access to and supporting the use of spatial interaction data sets produced from UK Censuses of Population. Census interaction data are data that relate to flows of people between places, such as commuting and migration data. The centre is jointly run through the Universities of Leeds and St Andrews.

For further details, visit the Centre for Interaction Data Estimation and Research (CIDER) website.

This five-year ESRC-funded centre has been established to conduct research that will improve our understanding of the key drivers and implications of population change within the United Kingdom. The centre is a collaboration between the University of Southampton, the University of St Andrews and a consortium of other Scottish institutions. A strong partnership with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) gives this centre a strong policy focus.

The Centre carries out research in the four thematic areas of:

• Dynamics of fertility and family formation 
• Household change and living arrangements across the life course 
• The demographic and socio-economic implications of national and transnational migration 
• Modelling population growth and enhancing the evidence base for policy

For further details, visit the Centre for Population Change (CPC) website.

Launched in 2001, the LSCS has secured funds from the Scottish Higher Education Council, the Chief Scientist's Office, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Scottish Executive and is the first research centre in Scotland specifically designed to undertake and support longitudinal studies. The major task of the centre is the establishment of the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS) where the census, vital events and health records of a large 5.3% anonymous sample of the Scottish population are linked together. The strategic demographic, socio-economic and health research undertaken by this centre, particularly through the support and use of the SLS, will be directly relevant to the Scottish economy, academic endeavour and the nation's health.

For further details, visit the Longitudinal Studies Centre - Scotland (LSCS) website.

Launched in 2003, the SDHI is joint initiative of the Universities of Dundee and St Andrews. It facilitates and conducts inter-disciplinary health research with a remit to address the social, economic and cultural factors underpinning the health of the public, health inequalities, access disparities and the abiding presence of preventable disease. As well as collaborating with various health researchers in Scotland, it works closely with local health boards and is particularly interested in how service design interacts with client need.

For further details, visit the Social Dimensions of Health Institute (SDHI) website.

There are many signs that we are living in a way that will cause problems for ourselves, future generations and the many other species we share our home with. People are slowly realising that humankind must act soon, so that everyone (including those not yet born) can have the chance of a life with increasing rather than decreasing choices. The term used to describe this future is sustainability‚ and the pathway towards it is sustainable development.

SASI is a group of people at the University of St Andrews working towards a sustainable future for everyone.

Our mission is to facilitate research, teaching, knowledge transfer and debate in order to enable the transformational change required to integrate sustainable thinking and actions into the foundations of everyday life.

For further details, visit the St Andrews Sustainability Institute (SASI) website.

Research on environmental change is underpinned by the Facility for Earth and Environmental Analysis (FEEA), which incorporates an outstanding range of laboratory facilities and field equipment. These facilities permit determination of the chemical composition and structure of a wide array of synthetic and natural materials and supports geological, geophysical, geomorphological, sedimentological, glaciological, hydrological and environmental field investigations. Custom-built laboratories house environmental magnetism and luminescence (OSL, TL, CL) equipment as well as an electron microprobe, scanning electron microscope, gas source mass spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer and X-ray fluorescence spectrometer for mineralogical, chemical and stable-isotope analysis. The capacity of the FEEA will be extended in 2006 through construction of dedicated clean laboratories and the installation of an inductively coupled plasma spectrometer (ICP-MS) that will enable high-throughput trace element analysis of water, sediment, soil, rock and organic samples. Environmental research in the School is supported by an impressive array of field sampling and monitoring equipment, computing facilities, laboratories, support staff, research vehicles and vessels.

For further details,visit the Facility for Earth and Environmental Analysis (FEEA) website.