Information for Participants

Data collection with Cohort ’98 at age 25 is almost finished.

Participants can find further information here.

What findings have come out of the Growing Up in Ireland study?

How to contact the Study Team to tell us you’ve moved or to get more information?

Please email us at growingup@cso.ie or telephone us at 021 453 511.

More information on participating in GUI surveys is available on the CSO website.

Participant Information Leaflets for completed waves

Participants’ information leaflets can be downloaded by following the links to the relevant cohort below.  Note that Cohort ’98 are those children who were first interviewed at age 9 years, and Cohort ’08 are those who were first interviewed at 9 months.

Data Confidentiality

All information provided as part of Growing Up in Ireland are treated as strictly confidential.  The study is carried out under the Statistics Act (1993) – this makes it an offence to use the data for anything other than research purposes or to attempt to identify individuals.  Researchers seeking to use Growing Up in Ireland anonymised data must agree to these conditions and abide by any other conditions, such as relating to data security, as set out by the Central Statistics Office, DCEDIY, ISSDA, the GUI Study Team or related bodies.

What is meant by data archiving?

The Growing Up in Ireland team use the data collected on the questionnaires to prepare various types of publications which are commissioned by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

In addition a fully-anonymised set of data are made available to other researchers via the Irish Social Sciences Data Archive (ISSDA).  The anonymisation process means that – in addition to the removal of contact details, dates of birth, names, occupation details and so on – other changes are made to either summarise or remove particular questions that only apply to smaller number of individuals.  Furthermore, most questions which refer to what would typically be considered ‘sensitive’ information are removed from the deposited file entirely.  Only bona fide researchers are allowed to use Growing Up in Ireland data and they cannot be used for commercial purposes.  Making the anonymised Growing Up in Ireland data available to more researchers increases the usefulness of this important national resource.  You can see examples of work published by external researchers here.

In a small number of cases, the Central Statistics Office may, at its discretion, approve external researchers to have access to a more detailed, but still anonymised version of the datafile (called an RMF).  Approval for use of this more detailed file is subject to strict data security requirements and the appointment of these external researchers as Officers of Statistics by the Central Statistics Office.

Any researcher who is granted access to the anonymised datafiles undertakes to abide by the data confidentiality rules as outlined above. Failure to do so may be treated as a criminal offence.

Further information on applying for Growing Up in Ireland data is available here.

Privacy Statement

The survey participant privacy statement is currently being revised. The updated statement will be added here soon.

Who manages the study?

Growing Up in Ireland is funded by the Irish Government and sponsored by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY).

The study is managed by DCEDIY in association with the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The CSO is responsible for Growing Up in Ireland data and carries out the Growing Up in Ireland surveys. DCEDIY is responsible for the research and policy aspects of Growing Up in Ireland. This is a collaborative model for Growing Up in Ireland that builds on and maximizes the use of the expertise and remit of each organisation, ensuring the data are used to improve the lives of children and young people.

To find out more about the two organisations, you can visit their home pages: