Access to reliable information is essential for good decision making.
Enabling access to reliable information for decision makers in the West Midlands is at the heart of the Observatory's role in the region. We work closely with organisations and individuals to identify and record the data and intelligence that exists in the region to build a comprehensive, publicly-accessible online collection of West Midlands data and intelligence.
The West Midlands Regional Resource Catalogue resides on the Observatory's website and is the primary tool in our work to identify and share data and intelligence resources. It provides full details on reports, datasets, websites and many other information resources published by a wide range of organisations.
The catalogue is fully searchable or you can browse for resources by subject or one of the regional strategies to identify the data or information that you require. Alternatively, try advanced search for more specific search queries.
To help you find the information you want, weveve produced an information sheet on how to search this site (PDF, 143KB).
We recognise that we cannot manage and maintain a comprehensive regional resource catalogue alone. We wholeheartedly encourage external submissions and any registered subscriber to this website can submit a resource online. Guidelines on submitting resources are available.
We also organise 'mapping' projects in which partners identify and catalogue resources to share with others. Some of these projects are formed around a theme, such as those projects led by our topic group members, whilst others take the form of a partner organisation submitting their own data and publications to share with others in the region.
Explore a variety of datasets using interactive maps. The geographical display of data helps to understand how separate issues affect the West Midlands region and local areas.
We often use geographic information systems (GIS) to produce maps to inform our research work. A selection of map images are available to download.
The Geographical Information Topic Group produced a set of guidelines on handling geographic data to signpost good practice and detail topics such as data collection, data storage, data distribution and metadata.
A free, simple and downloadable protocol to enable organisations to simplify and encourage sharing of data, meet their legal obligations and deal with issues such as intellectual property rights, data security and data formatting.