For immediate release

Contact: Rachel Brown, Media Relations, 215-574-3840

Philadelphia, PA — The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia will be the location for a new Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC), a facility that will provide area researchers with access to some of the nation’s highest-quality census data for analysis of the U.S. economy and public policy issues.

FSRDCs are partnerships between federal statistical agencies and leading research institutions that provide qualified researchers with a secure environment in which to access restricted-use microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the National Center for Health Statistics, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The new center will join the network of 23 FSRDCs located around the country.

Four research institutions, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania State University, have formed a consortium to operate and fund the Philadelphia center together with the existing FSRDC on the Pennsylvania State University’s State College campus. The Philadelphia and Penn State centers will be the only FSRDCs in the Third Federal Reserve District.

“The selection of our Bank as the site of the first FSRDC in Philadelphia underscores the region's high-caliber research reputation,” said Keith Sill, vice president and director of the Philadelphia Fed’s Real-Time Data Research Center. “We are excited for the opportunity to connect local researchers with valuable census data that inform important research for industries and communities in the Third District and across the country.”

Because of the data’s confidential nature, the Census Bureau will review and approve requests for access to the FSRDC. Approved projects must demonstrate scientific merit and maintain the anonymity of the individuals and firms in the data, and researchers are required to protect the confidentiality of the data they access.

The Philadelphia FSRDC is expected to open in the first half of 2017.

The Census Bureau also announced the following new FSRDCs: Rocky Mountain Research Data Center (University of Colorado–Boulder); Kentucky Research Data Center (University of Kentucky–Lexington); Georgetown Research Data Center (a branch of the Census headquarters FSRDC); University of Texas–Austin (a branch of the Texas FSRDC); University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (a branch of the Chicago FSRDC).

Information about the FSRDC network is available at www.census.gov/fsrdc.