Research Data Centers: Florida Research Data Center

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This award will support the establishment of the Florida Research Data Center (FRDC) at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. The FRDC is supported by a partnership between UF and Florida State University (FSU). The FRDC will provide medical and social science researchers access to restricted-use data collected by federal agencies. In addition to researchers at UF, FSU and their teaching hospitals, scientists from University of Central Florida, University of South Florida, Moffitt Cancer Center, and state agencies in Florida will be able to use the FRDC to advance research in numerous fields. The FRDC will serve multiple research communities, including health, medical, social, behavioral, demographic, and economic. Residents in Florida and across the country will benefit when practitioners apply the results of this research to translational science and broader issues shaping public policy. Although the research profile of the FRDC will address topics of national and international interest, many researchers will address current problems in Florida that may serve as a bell-weather for problems in other states. The FRDC also will be used across the region as a training resource for undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral associates. These researchers-in-training will benefit from working on research projects using the data available from the FRDC, giving them a more robust experience in their scientific education.The FRDC will join the community of Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (FSRDCs) as an important asset to regional researchers. Because long-distance travel to other FSRDCs will be unnecessary, researchers previously not able to purse their research because of the time and expense of this travel will find new opportunities to expand their scientific portfolio. Researchers who have used other FSRDCs will be able to accomplish their projects more efficiently and cost-effectively. A focus point for this FRDC will be the integration of population and health data with U.S. Census microdata. With this new resource available more locally, interdisciplinary and interinstitutional collaborations among researchers in the area will be enhanced. Investigator access to restricted-use data will expand research thereby contributing to scientific fields. Society at large will benefit from advances in medical and health outcome research made possible by this new resource.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.