About our online research
Ofcom carries out a regular programme of research and data collection to understand what people do online, what they experience, and how they feel about it.
Under our duties as the online safety regulator, we examine different types of harm from the perspective of users who encounter them. We also look at the systems and processes used to create a safer environment.
Our research gives us – and our stakeholders – the evidence we need to understand the online environment and how it’s changing.
Our research methods
We use many different methods to understand users’ online behaviour:
- We use qualitative and quantitative tools like interviews and surveys to ask people about their behaviour and attitudes directly.
- We use observation and behavioural insights to understand what's really happening in people's online lives.
- We analyse many different types of data, including web analytics and passive monitoring.
- We develop new research methods and conduct experiments to constantly improve the quality of evidence our teams can draw on.
- We collect data from stakeholders to inform our understanding of the sector and support our supervision and monitoring functions.
What we publish
Our publications range from large-scale repositories of market data and trends, through to exploratory work investigating the less visible aspects of people's online lives and discussion of new, innovative ways to measure the online environment.
Where possible, we provide our research as open data so it's available for anyone to use or share.
Online safety research agenda
On 15 April 2024 we published our first research agenda for online safety. If you think you can support our work in any of our areas of interest, please complete our expression of interest form.
Research pilots
From time to time, we publish methodological notes and lessons learned from our work.
Measuring children's exposure to harm online – research pilots
Effectiveness of serious games – behavioural insight trial pilot