For Member Countries

Science is becoming more and more data-driven and faces increasing requirements on the reproducibility of data. By becoming a member of CESSDA, a country can adapt to the growing importance of (scientific) data and better connect science and society.

Joining CESSDA will:

• Increase the scientific excellence and efficacy of research in the social sciences
  • Expand easy access to data and metadata regardless of borders
  • Train researchers and data experts
• Support a European research infrastructure for sharing social science data
  • Increase the reuse of these data
  • Join forces and share expertise and technology among data service providers
  • Participate in the social science data part of the European Open Science Cloud.

For National Data Service Providers

Within CESSDA, each member country must assign a national Service Provider (or a consortium of service providers). These Service Providers are at the core of CESSDA and cooperate on providing services to researchers.

Being part of CESSDA implies that Service Providers:

• Can share their expertise
• Can be more efficient and provide better services by
  • Setting up a common technology
  • Developing and using standards
  • Eligibility and better access to European funding.

For Data Producers

Researchers that produce data need to archive these data – for reuse or for reproducing their results. As sharing data becomes the norm, it is important to provide useful information on their data that can be complex, multilingual, requiring national context, etc. Research funders also require Data Management Plans and the GDPR data protection regulation requires protecting the privacy of respondents.

CESSDA offers tools & services:

• Easy & safe deposit of research data
• Providing visibility for sharing data and credits on reuse
• Compliance with funder requirements – on GDPR and Research Data Management
• Training – esp. on data management and sharing data.

For Data Users

For researchers and other professionals that want to reuse social research data, we offer a number of tools & services that follow the FAIR principles: data must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

For example, CESSDA provides:

• A common data catalogue to find and access relevant data (CESSDA Data Catalogue)
• Secured access to sensitive data
• Tools and projects to make data Interoperable and easy to reuse
• Training and sharing expertise on reusing data.

How to join CESSDA

Member States of the European Union, associated countries, third countries other than associated countries, and intergovernmental organisations can join CESSDA as a member or an observer. Membership fees are based on GDP.

CESSDA can also assist countries in setting up a data policy and establishing a national service provider. For this, you can use our Guide for Developing National Data Service Plans (pdf).

Service Providers will become part of the CESSDA community as their country becomes a member or observer. For non-members, CESSDA offers seminars and meetings to exchange expertise with CESSDA Service Providers.

Researchers and other professionals have free access to CESSDA Tools & Services – for archiving their data they can refer to the national Service Provider directly.

For more information, contact CESSDA.

Our current members

Current members and partners can be viewed here.