History and Mission

The creation of a national system of Research Data Centres(RDCs) was one of several recommendations made by the Joint Working Group on the Advancement of Research Using Social Statistics set up by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and Statistics Canada.

The group’s Final Report (December 1998) began:

“Canada’s social policy has not kept pace with the dramatic changes in its economic policy in the past two decades.” While “we have a number of excellent and timely social surveys covering a number of topics,… as a nation we have very little capacity to conduct social policy research, evaluate social programs or monitor progress toward achieving social aims.”

It went on to highlight three significant barriers to be overcome for Canada to develop its research capacity in social statistics:

1. Lack of access to detailed micro-data

2. Lack of trained researchers in significant numbers

3. Weak links between social scientists and potential users of the knowledge they generate

and recommended the development of three components which together would comprise the Canadian Initiative on the Social Sciences. The first included two proposals to improve access to detailed micro-data: i) establishing Research Data Centres and ii) enhancing and expanding the Data Liberation Initiative.

Although the CRDCN emerged as a strategy to overcome one of the three significant barriers – lack of access to detailed microdata - the Network has adopted a broader mission statement and is working on all three fronts.

In January 2000, CFI awarded over $5 million to develop the infrastructure (secure, fully-equipped laboratories) for six regional RDCs, located on university campuses in Vancouver, Calgary, Waterloo, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax. Statistics Canada provided a matching grant largely in the form of longitudinal survey data to be housed in the centres.

Three other universities also applied for provincial funding to open RDCs: McMaster University, the University of Alberta and the University of New Brunswick. McMaster RDC in Hamilton was the first to open its doors in December 2000. The eight other centres followed gradually over the next 12 months, and by the end of 2001 the RDC Network was underway.