| ADASS | Association of Directors of Adult Social Care |
| ASCOF | Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework |
| ASCOT | Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (see http://www.pssru.ac.uk/ascot/) |
| ASCS | Adult Social Care Survey |
| CASSR | Council with adult social service responsibilities |
| CCG | Clinical Commissioning Group |
| CES | Carers’ experience survey (see PSS SACE) |
| CQC | Care Quality Commission |
| CRB | Criminal Records Bureau (now DBS) |
| CSRI | Client Service Receipt Inventory |
| DA code | Departmental analysis code (to allocate a financial transaction to an activity within a project) |
| DA cost | Directly allocated cost (ie a project overhead) |
| DBS | Disclosure and Barring Service |
| DH | Department of Health |
| DI cost | Directly incurred cost (ie researcher salaries, travel & subsistence budgeted for in a project) |
| DSAs | Data sharing agreements |
| EAC | Elderly Accomodation Counsel |
| EQ-5D | European Quality of Life - 5 Dimensions |
| ESHCRU | Economics of Social and Health Care Research (see http://eshcru.ac.uk/) |
| EXCEL | Exploring Comparative Effectiveness and efficiency in Long-term care |
| FEC | Full economic cost |
| FTE | Full time equivalent |
| HS&DR | Health Service & Delivery Research |
| HSCIC or IC | Health & Social Care Information Centre |
| IB | Individual budget |
| IIASC | Identifying the impact of adult social care |
| IPC | Integrated Personal Commissioning |
| ITT | Invitation to tender |
| KAR | Kent Academic Repository |
| KRIMSON | Kent Research & Innovation Management System On-line |
| LSE | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| LTC | Long-term care |
| LTCQ | Long-term care questionnaire (being developed by QORU Oxford colleagues) |
| MAX | Maximising the value of survey data in adult social care |
| MOOCH | Measuring outcomes of care homes |
| MOPSU | Measuring outcomes for public service users (a previous project) |
| MRC | Medical Research Council |
| NHS | National Health Service |
| NHSE | NHS England |
| NICE | National Institute for Health and Care Excellence |
| NIHR | National Institute for Health Research |
| NORFACE | New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe (see http://www.norface.net/) |
| NREC | National Health Service Research Ethics Committee |
| OA | Open access |
| OP | Older people |
| OSCA | Outcomes of social care for adults (a previous project) |
| PAG | Project advisory group |
| PCT | Primary care trust |
| PHBE (pronounced Phoebe) | Personal health budgets evaluation |
| PIIG | Public involvement implementation group |
| PIRU | Policy Innovation Research Unit |
| PPI | Public and patient involvement |
| PROM | Patient-Reported Outcome Measure |
| P(D)SI | Physical disability or sensory impairment |
| PSS SACE | Personal Social Services Survey of Adult Carers in England (also referred to as the CES, Carers’ Survey or SACE, Survey of Adult Carers in England) |
| PSSRU | Personal Social Services Research Unit |
| PWLD or PWID | People with learning difficulties or people with intellectual disabilities |
| OF | Outcomes Framework (see ASCOF) |
| QALY | Quality of life-adjusted year |
| QMF | Quality measurement framework (a previous project, was renamed MOPSU) |
| QoL | Quality of life |
| QORU | Quality and Outcomes of person-centred care Research Unit (see http://www.qoru.ac.uk/) |
| R&D | Research and Development |
| REC | Research Ethics Committee (see NREC and SCREC) |
| RGF | Research Governance Framework |
| RNF | Relative Needs Formula |
| SCIE | Social Care Institute for Excellence |
| SCREC | Social Care Research Ethics Committee |
| SCRQOL | Social care-related quality of life |
| SLiCE | Shared Lives Costs and Effectiveness |
| SSCR | School for Social Care Research (see http://www.sscr.nihr.ac.uk/) |
| SMG/SMT | Senior management group/team (same thing) |
| SMIG | Social media implementation group |
| SSUSG | Social Services User Survey Group |
| TSI | Third Sector Impact |
| UC | Unit costs |
| UES | User experience survey |