CESSDA AS - Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives

New pan-European Research Infrastructure

Since its establishment in 1976, CESSDA has served as an informal umbrella organisation for the European national data archives. Now, CESSDA is established as a permanent legal entity owned and financed by the individual member states’ ministry of research or a delegated institution. Norway will host CESSDA, and the main office is located in Bergen.

As of to-day 13 European countries are member of the new CESSDA:

• Austria
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Lithuania
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Slovenia
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom

The major objective for CESSDA is to provide seamless access to data across repositories, nations, languages and research purposes. CESSDA will encourage standardisation of data and metadata, data sharing and knowledge mobility across Europe. CESSDA aim to play an active part in the development of standards and, even more important, to encourage and facilitate the use of metadata standards for documenting and publishing the existing inventories of research data available from national as well as cross-national resources in Europe.

Each of the member states are represented by a national institution, a Service Provider, that will be responsible for providing the relevant services. The Service Providers will constitute the CESSDA main resource, and CESSDA will integrate the work of the Service Providers and by establishing a one-stop shop for data location, access, analysis and delivery. Software development will increase the quality of available data. Data from sources currently outside CESSDA will also become available. CESSDA will create a more dynamic knowledge management web and will contribute to metadata initiatives. The new CESSDA will also improve existing technical infrastructures and promote capacity building, support less developed and less well-resourced organisations, and work toward a widening of CESSDA.