This blog, by Dr Joseph Owen, explores how a place-based qualitative data observatory can connect stories, strengthen evidence, and shape more grounded local decision-making.
It explores some of the key ideas from this policy briefing – Towards A Place-Based Qualitative Data Observatory.
For some time now, I’ve been keen to translate our research on qualitative data into something that policymakers might read. This research briefing is just that – a translation: the paper aims to demonstrate how qualitative data intervenes in national policy agendas, how it is generated and connected by policy organisations, and how it can be used to tell stories about different communities.
Any vehicle for this data—let’s say an observatory, for example—is never neutral. We’re therefore alert to the cultural, historical, and political specificities of platforms that claim to represent people and places. It is in that context that we present the following work, with the intention of provoking further discussion. A summary of its key points is provided below.
For other publications from the Neighbouring Data project, our reports can be found here. Our journal article can be downloaded from Policy Studies.
National policy agendas
Recent LPIP analysis underlines the changing conditions in which local authorities operate. Work on data devolution, transparency and place productivity highlights the need for devolved analytical capacity, investment in local data skills, and long-term data stewardship. At the same time, identity, attachment and lived and felt experience often exceed quantitative metrics. Novel ways of understanding places—grounded in qualitative data—are needed.
These concerns are amplified by wider national policy priorities. The Levelling Up agenda foregrounded “what [people] love about their place,” insisting that pride and felt experiences are key sources of evidence for shaping interventions in places. Similarly, the New Towns programme depends on understanding how communities experience their places, how they identify with them, and how built environments cultivate belonging and wellbeing. Such ambitions cannot be met with quantitative data alone. They require robust, rigorous, and credible mechanisms for generating and interpreting qualitative data, particularly data that captures the lived and felt experience of place.
Neighbouring data
At the University of Southampton, through the AHRC-funded Neighbouring Data project, we have sought to understand the infrastructure requirements for qualitative data and place. Our mixed-methods approach included analysis of the practice and literature of data observatories alongside an account of the experiences of data users and practitioners. The volume and heterogeneity of information generated by national and local organisations pose a key challenge. This data is often garnered through miscellaneous survey comments, detailed narrative interviews, evaluation forms, doorstep conversations, and participant observations.
One of the most striking findings was this surfeit of qualitative data held by organisations. Local councillors frequently functioned as a “qualitative interface” between councils and residents, reflecting the extent to which qualitative responses circulate through local government. One participant described the “never-ending big bang of data” that characterises their day-to-day practice. Yet local authorities, community groups and other organisations often lack clear protocols for understanding where this data comes from, how it connects to other datasets, and how it can be used in decision-making.
Generation, connection, use
The qualitative data observatory, which we understand as a model that “convert[s] episodic research opportunities into clusters of observed events,” responds to these wider systemic demands. Generation of qualitative data concerns its creation, collection, and reporting. Connection of qualitative data concerns its visualisation, narration, and representation. Use of qualitative data concerns its implementation, evaluation, and maintenance over time.
Participants repeatedly emphasised that qualitative data, even when incomplete or imperfect, can “tell a strategic story.” They argued that decision-making should not be paralysed by a desire for perfect evidence: “Don’t make perfect the enemy of the good” was a key refrain. At the same time, there was a need for transparent protocols that support trust in decision-making, establish clear data provenance, and allow organisations to engage with seldom heard communities and young people.
Stories we tell
A place-based qualitative data observatory offers one response to these challenges. Provenance is central to establishing rigour and credibility. Data biographies offer a means of capturing how qualitative data comes into being, identifying who collected it, under what conditions it was produced, and with what limitations. Narrative and storytelling are central to the purpose of a qualitative data observatory. Stories provide top-layer analysis that accommodates complexity. Metadata, meanwhile, plays a crucial role in connecting heterogeneous data, allowing for searchability, comparison and thematic grouping.
One further consideration is the distinction between data and evidence. Qualitative data does not cease to be data because it cannot be counted, nor does it become less evidence-based because it is generated through narrative, testimony, or lived experience. The more pertinent question is how it is generated, connected, and used. Focusing on use foregrounds the social and institutional contexts in which data becomes meaningful: who gathers it, who analyses it, who determines its relevance, and for what purpose it is mobilised.
As demands for data shift, so too must the infrastructures that support evidence-informed decision-making. A place-based qualitative data observatory can support policymakers by allowing lived and felt experiences to be articulated as qualitative data and by giving these experiences a voice in decision-making.
This blog was written by Joseph Owen, a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton.
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Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this post are those of the author and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.