Data access & conditions

European Cooperation in Social Science Data Dissemination

6. Strengthening the Infrastructure for Social Research

Social research is normally conducted by project teams in small institutes, rarely exceeding five to ten people. In addition, work contracts for staff members are limited to four or to eight years. These restrictions hardly allow to concentrate and to preserve the expertise required for comparative research within one institute. Complex research designs, e.g. for large panel studies and further diversification in useful technology, make it impossible to maintain high standards in all fields. This situation can be remedied if the research teams can lean on external expertise of social science infrastructure institutes when needed for particular steps in the research process.

Previous attempts to construct time series from already existing data show that attitudinal variables are seldom measured in a directly comparable form. In many cases, this even holds true for data sets generated by one and the same institute over time. While tribute has to be paid to diversity of societies, this obvious lack of standardisation prevents social research from becoming cumulative. Beyond well known socio-psychological scales, greater emphasis should be on indicator testing and calibration, sensitive to cultural specifics and functional equivalency. From this, an increasing consistency should result when applying identical variables for measuring phenomena over space and time. While individual creativity in research design and in formulating questions is appreciated, conceptual and technical deficits in data representation and documentation are a superfluous obstacle for efficient use of available data.