The CESSDA SaW Horizon 2020 project is a success story for CESSDA ERIC. It focused on strengthening and widening national social science data service providers.

The project fostered knowledge exchange between current, future, and aspiring data service providers, and brought together 25 partners across Europe. By offering the necessary administrative, technical, and methodological support, the project promoted the establishment of new data archives and strengthening existing ones.

Another major result for policy development and benchmarking was the Country Report on Development Potential, a comprehensive overview mapping the current state of play of data archive services in 44 – mainly European – countries. “We had a mix of experienced, new and potential service providers. For countries without any infrastructure, we set up a Guide for National Planning for Setting Up New Data Services, which is on developing social science research data policy and how to work towards the establishment of a national data service provider” stated Ivana Ilijasic Versic, project coordinator and Chief Operations Officer of CESSDA.

The project also developed important input for CESSDA’s Quality Assessment model, serving as a quality check of its service providers. This model also helps national actors to identify gaps between the need for efficient and trustworthy services and the actual services offered.

For Service Providers, a Knowledge Exchange platform was developed and is now up and running on CESSDA’s Intranet. In addition, several training modules on archiving, data curation and infrastructure design have been made available.

“We enjoyed the meetings and workshops where policy officers, service provider’s staff, and high officials from EC and ministries met and cooperated. Two years on, CESSDA is a stronger and renowned social science data infrastructure,” stated Ron Dekker, Director of CESSDA. “And in addition, the project ended on time and within its assigned budget”.

“The CESSDA SaW project was a success and accomplished what it set out to achieve. Our impact on a pan-European level is clearly visible. We have engaged national ministries and other funding bodies and their interest in CESSDA proves that we have positioned ourselves as one of the major players in the research infrastructure arena. Two new countries joined CESSDA, and more countries are in the pipeline for becoming a member,” stated Ron Dekker.

“After the project, CESSDA will continue the “SaW” meetings with established and new service providers and with countries that are interested in setting up a social science data infrastructure. In May, we will have a meeting in Paris and in autumn 2018 we will meet in Prague” stated Ivana Ilijasic Versic.

View the article on the CESSDA SaW website.

More information on CESSDA’s Strengthening and Widening activities:

CESSDA ERIC
Ivana Ilijasic Versic, Chief Operations Officer
Ivana.Versic@CESSDA.EU
Tel +47 55 58 36 54