Am 7./8. September 2022 findet in St.Gallen das 9. Schweizer Methodenfestival für qualitative Forschungs-methoden statt. In insgesamt 15 Forschungsateliers können sich Interessierte über den aktuellen Stand verschiedener Methoden informieren und ihre Fragen sowie teilweise auch ihre eigenen Projekte mit ausgewiesenen Expertinnen und Experten diskutieren. Am Methodenfestival sind qualitative Sozialforschende aus der Schweiz als auch aus dem Ausland willkommen.

Programm und weitere Informationen: 

https://qualitative-research.ch/9-schweizer-methoden-festival

Due to the success of the past four webinars, FORS offers four new webinars as part of the Data Management Webinar Series in 2022. The first webinar of this series is destined to the topic of „informed consent“,  held online between 1 and 2pm.

Save the dates for the other webinars!

The second webinar will be on „documentation“ (October 11, 2022),  the third on „anonymisation of quantitative data“ (November 1, 2022) and the last one in this series on „anonymisation of qualitative data“ (November 22, 2022).

The webinars are given by experts in the field at FORS. The participation is free, yet registration is required. The registration will open soon on the following webpage: https://forscenter.ch/data-management-webinar-series/

Quality of Life in Europe at Risk? Effects of the pandemic, climate change and green transition.

This is the theme of the 16th Conference „Social Monitoring and Reporting in Europe“ at Villa Vigoni, Loveno di Menaggio, Italy.

The conference „Social Monitoring and Reporting in Europe“ addresses current and potential future effects of the pandemic and climate change – inclusive effects of related policy measures – on citizens‘ quality of life in European societies. 

For information on previous conferences see: http://www.tarki.hu/villa-vigoni-conferences

Supported by:

When: 20 and 21 June, 9:00-13:00
Format: Interactive
Venue: Online, a zoom link will be provided upon registration
Audience: Support staff, librarians, research consultants, anyone involved in the provision of data management support

• Are you involved in the provision of data management support to social science researchers?
• Do you regularly get questions about the implementation of day-to-day data management practices?
• Do you sometimes struggle to answer researchers’ questions?
• Do you wish to learn more about key data management topics?
• Would you like to meet with other data management experts and learn from their experiences?
  If so, then this two-day online workshop is for you!

Further information and registration: https://forscenter.ch/the-top-10-data-management-questions/

Interested but the dates do not work for you? Please let us know by contacting Alexandra.Stam@fors.unil.ch  Depending on the level of interest, we may organize a similar event later in the year.

The next FORS Lunch Seminar will take place on Tuesday, May 10, from 12:45 to 13:45 in Room 5899 at Géopolis, UNIL.

Carmen Borrat-Besson (FORS) will present the following project:

Advance directives and stability of end-of-life preferences in Swiss older adults

Abstract

In the last few years, the promotion of advance care planning has become a public health priority in Switzerland. In this context, people are invited to reflect on their wishes concerning the end of life, talk about them to their relatives, and document them in order to optimize therapeutic choices in case they are not able anymore to make decisions for themselves following an accident, a stroke or a heart attack, for example.

However, advance care planning assumes that preferences for end-of-life care remain stable over time. Although the stability of these preferences has been explored in seriously or terminally ill patients, so far, few studies have focused on younger people who should now be involved in this planning process.

The purpose of our study is to close this gap by examining the stability of a wide range of end-of-life preferences in the general population and to identify characteristics that are related to their stability or change. Our analyses are based on data collected among Swiss SHARE participants who completed the two paper-and-pencil questionnaires on end-of-life preferences in waves 6 (2015) and 8 (2019-2020). In this presentation, we will examine whether people who completed advance directives had more stable end-of-life preferences than people who did not.

We look forward to your participation.

After the success of the first edition, FORS and SWITCH are organising again the virtual Open Research Data (ORD) Hackathon between May 3-5, 2022 to strengthen collaboration around ORD. We aim to bring the research community together to share ideas and pave the way for innovative projects and applications to improve the ORD landscape.

Submit your ideas now and not later than April 14, 2022 and register here.

All information: https://www.ord-hackathon.ch/

Developers, students, academics and service providers from Switzerland and beyond…you are in the right place to innovate, expand your network and use your skills creatively !

Contact: info@ord-hackathon.ch

The hackathon will take place in Zürich (Switch, Werdstrasse 2).

Supported by:

This introductory workshop is intended for anyone who wants to learn about the concept and value of secondary data and how to obtain secondary data at FORS.

During the webinar you will learn about the potential of secondary data for re-use in scientific analyses and teaching purposes. You will get to discover what types of data are available via our new online platform SWISSUbase (which has recently replaced FORSbase for the social sciences), how you can find them and under what conditions you can obtain and use them. At the end of the presentation you will have the chance to ask questions and engage in a discussion with experts from FORS.

Join us on April 7, from 1 to 2 pm, online on zoom.

This is a free event, yet registration is required.

Register here.

Once you have registered, you will receive a message from us with the confirmation of your registration and the link to the ZOOM meeting.

Dear all,

We are pleased to invite you to the next Methods and Research Meeting organized by FORS and SSP/UNIL. It will take place in room 5779 at Géopolis building, University of Lausanne on Tuesday 29 March 2022 from 12:15 to 13:30.

We welcome Marion Repetti from the Institut de recherche en Travail social at the HEVS.

Conditions de vie de retraité·e·s vivant à l’étranger. Une analyse comparative qualitative des politiques publiques

Depuis trois décennies, nous assistons à une augmentation de la migration de personnes retraitées en provenance de pays du Nord vers des pays où le coût de la vie est moins cher. La migration de retraite peut prendre diverses formes : certaines personnes migrent pour la première fois après l’entrée à la retraite, d’autres retournent dans leur pays de naissance après avoir passé plusieurs années dans un pays du Nord, d’autres encore effectuent une migration saisonnière. Un nombre croissant de chercheur·e·s se penchent sur ces pratiques, ainsi que sur les transformations sociales culturelles et matérielles qu’elles reflètent. Ces travaux s’intéressent peu au rôle que les politiques publiques peuvent jouer sur la migration de retraite, tant sur la décision des retraité·e·s de migrer, que sur leur vécu dans le pays d’accueil. Or, l’étude des liens entre précarité et migration à la retraite révèle la l’importance de prendre en considération les politiques publiques dans l’analyse de ce type de pratiques migratoires. Les politiques de retraite et de santé, qui, selon Estes et Wallace (2010), façonnent plus que toutes autres l’expérience du vieillissement dans les pays du Nord, sont particulièrement significatives dans ce contexte. Dans cette présentation, j’utiliserai les données qualitatives récoltées auprès de plus de 80 de retraité·e·s européen·ne·s et nord-américain·e·s ayant migré pour la première fois à la retraite. Je montrerai comment la prise en compte des politiques publiques s’est révélée essentiel pour l’étude des pratiques migratoires des interviewé·e·s. En me focalisant sur les cas des retraité·e·s en provenance de Suisse, du Royaume Uni et des États-Unis, vivant en Espagne, au Costa Rica et au Mexique, je mettrai également en évidence comment l’analyse qualitative comparative de ces données aide à saisir l’articulation entre les politiques publiques et la migration de retraite.

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Version anglaise

Living conditions of retirees living abroad. A qualitative comparative analysis of public policies

Over the past three decades, we have witnessed an increase in the migration of retirees from Northern countries to countries where costs of living are lower. Retirement migration can take various forms: some people migrate for the first time after retiring, some return to their country of birth after spending several years in a richer country, and others migrate seasonally. A growing number of researchers are examining these practices, as well as the cultural and material social transformations they reflect. Little attention has been paid to the role those public policies can play in retirement migration, both in terms of retirees’ decision to migrate and in terms of their experiences in the host country. Yet, the study of the links between precarity and retirement migration reveals the importance of taking public policies into consideration when analyzing this type of migration practices. Particularly significant in this context are retirement and health policies, which Estes and Wallace (2010) argue shape the experience of aging in Northern countries more than any other. In this presentation, I will use qualitative data collected from more than 80 European and North American retirees who migrated for the first time after retirement. I will show how the role of public policy has proven essential to the study of the interviewees‘ migration practices. Focusing on the cases of retirees from Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States living in Spain, Costa Rica, and Mexico, I will also show how the comparative qualitative analysis of these data helps to understand the articulations between public policy and retirement migration.

Bio:

Dr Marion Repetti est responsable de l’Institut de recherche en Travail social à l’HEVS. Elle a effectué un parcours académique en sciences sociales avec une orientation en sociologie et politique sociale. Elle a obtenu en 2015 une thèse de doctorat de l’Université de Lausanne portant sur la politique de la vieillesse et le traitement social des personnes âgées en Suisse du début du 20e siècle à nos jours. Par ailleurs, elle a travaillé comme assistante sociale dans le domaine des institutions socio-sanitaires visant le soin et la réinsertion des personnes souffrant de dépendances.

We look forward to your participation.

The organizing committee:

Stephanie Steinmetz

Jacques-Antoine Gauthier 

Oliver Lipps

This Lunch seminar will take place on March 8, 2022 between 12:45 and 13:45 in room 5899 at Géopolis/UNIL.

Marieke Voorpostel will present:

WELLWAYS: Critical events and transitions in family and work and multidimensional wellbeing

Abstract

Increasing diversity in family and work trajectories and the growing interdependence between these two domains produces a large range of life course configurations whose impact on wellbeing is largely unknown. WELLWAYS, an SNSF-funded project (2019-2022) based on Swiss and French longitudinal data, investigated how professional and family trajectories jointly produce inequality in wellbeing outcomes, by taking a dynamic approach to the life course and a multidimensional approach to wellbeing. It pays particular attention to the relative timing and concentration of events, and to the fact of experiencing such events not in one but in multiple domains. As WELLWAYS is coming to an end, this presentation will give an overview of the project and a summary of its main findings and insights.

We look forward to your participation.

8ème Festival suisse des méthodes qualitatives : le qualitatif en santé.

Un événement pour aborder les enjeux de santé avec des perspectives innovantes

Le 8ème Festival suisse des méthodes qualitatives est organisé les 4 et 5 novembre 2021 par l’Unité Sociologie du Département des sciences sociales. Il est axé cette année sur les questions de santé. Cette thématique est incontournable dans la période que nous vivons. Elle fait l’objet de nombreux travaux de la part des sciences sociales et humaines, notamment avec une diversité d’approches qualitatives sur lesquelles le Festival se propose de porter l’attention. Le programme s’adresse à un public académique et extra-académique intéressé par les dispositifs méthodologiques qualitatifs ou par la thématique de la santé (enseignants, chercheurs, doctorants et postdoctorants, professionnels ou bénévoles actif-ve-s dans le domaine de la santé, etc.).

Les participant-e- s pourront assister aux conférences de deux keynote speakers :  Madame Sylvie Grosjean (Université d’Ottawa) sur l’analyse vidéo des pratiques cliniques et Madame Muriel Figuié (Centre pour la recherche et le Développement, Montpellier) sur l’étude des pandémies en termes de santé globale. Ils-elles participeront à un choix de quinze ateliers interactifs, consacrés à une large palette de thématiques et de méthodologies qualitatives. Ces workshops seront animés par des enseignants et chercheurs travaillant dans diverses institutions de Suisse romande et des pays francophones.  L’événement se clôturera par une table-ronde intitulée „Interprofessionalités:  Comment sciences sociales et de la santé travaillent-elles ensemble?“

Pour s’inscrire et consulter le programme complet, rendez-vous à la page suivante: https://www.unifr.ch/socio/fr/news-and-events/festival.html

Taking as point of departure the conference organized by the ESFRI Strategic Working Group on Social and Cultural Innovation on the impact of research infrastructures, which took place in 2018 in Bologna, the ESFRI Strategy Working Groups have joined forces to organize a follow-up conference to discuss the meaning and the possible measurement of impact further.  The overall objectives of the conference are:

Exchange on the meaning of impact and its variation between and within different fields and research infrastructures.
Exchange on the measurement of impact and its variation between and within different fields (scientific but also economic, societal, cultural impact).
Showcase where and how infrastructures in different field create impact.
Discuss potential and limitation of collaboration between infrastructures to create impact.
Discuss what is the best way for research infrastructures to increase their impact further.

More information on http://www.impact2021.ch/

Dr. Valérie-Anne Ryser (FORS) will start with an introduction to the SHP survey and data structure. Dr. Erika Antal (FORS), Dr. Hannah Klaas (FORS, LIVES Centre) and Sandrine Morel (UNIL-LINES) will introduce participants to the R environment. Participants will create a data file in R, discover solutions to the various problems encountered when importing, creating, merging and reshaping data files. They will explore the data file they have created, using basic commands for descriptive and inference statistics. Finally, they will get the opportunity to produce a data file that matches their own research question.

The workshop will be held in English. The participation in the SHP Workshop costs 200.- CHF.

Consult the detailed program

This edition will include thematic sessions that cover a wide variety of topics, such as health and well-being, education and labour market, families, migration, or politics and attitudes. We also welcome a special session organized by TREE as well as by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office.

Further information on the conference and the scientific programme

The next FORS Lunch Seminar will take place on Tuesday, June 1, from 12:45 to 13:45 via Zoom.

Henk Verloo (HES-SO Valais-Wallis), Boris Wernli (FORS) and Filipa Pereira (HES-SO Valais-Wallis) will present the following project: Methodological considerations and outcomes of routinely collecting highly sensitive health data from a hospital register

Background: Patient registries can be powerful tools for observing diseases, treatment and outcome variations, examining prognoses, describing patterns of care, estimating the appropriateness of care delivery, assessing effectiveness, monitoring safety and harm, and measuring aspects of care quality.

Aim: To describe profiles and analyse risks—made up of medication, clinical, medical and environment-related factors—that increase older adults’ chances of hospitalisation, ED visits, hospital readmission, institutionalisation or early death.

Method: We synthesised a large longitudinal dataset extracted from a Swiss regional hospital’s register (2015–2018), including older inpatients’ administrative, clinical and medical data. Various clustering methods were used to identify profiles across the different dimensions of inpatients’ conditions (psychological, somatic, diagnostic, medication). Multilevel logistic regressions were calculated to assess associations between identified clusters and risks of hospitalisation, hospital readmission, institutionalisation or early death.

Results: The four-year dataset incorporated 140 variables from 20,422 polymedicated inpatients aged 65 or older, admitted directly from their homes. The overall 30-day hospital readmission rate was 7.8%. Multilevel logistic regression analyses revealed multiple health and drug determinants of hospital readmission. The mean prevalence of unplanned institutionalisation after hospital discharge was 6.1%. Predictive analyses revealed sociodemographic factors and functional dependency to be strong determinants of unplanned institutionalisation.

Conclusions: Hospital registers are raw data. Customisation is complex and requires multiple interventions and techniques. Routinely collected health data can substantially increase knowledge about hospital health patterns and adverse drug effects. Accessing existing highly sensitive data is complex and discourages researchers from exploring large datasets.

Join us online!

Zoom: https://unil.zoom.us/j/9258225207

Passcode: 4582849563

The Swiss Covid-19 Data Symposium organised by FORS will give social science researchers an overview of different Swiss datasets that can be analyzed to assess the impact of the Covid-19-pandemic on numerous aspects of individuals’ everyday lives.

COVID-19 data from the following surveys and studies are presented: MOSAiCH, Swiss Corona Stress Study, Selects, Swiss Household Panel, COVID-19 Social Monitor ZHAW, SHARE and the COVID-19 Edition Science Barometer Switzerland. Researchers also get the chance to talk to the producers of the data and ask detailed questions. The event takes place online and all presentations are held in English.

All detailed information on the COVID-19 data, the surveys, studies and presenters and the registration are to be found on the Symposium website.

The event is organised by FORS.

Questions regarding the organisation: info@forscenter.ch
Questions regarding the content of the symposium: Dr Marieke Heers

The next FORS Lunch Seminar will take place on Tuesday, March 2, from 12:45 to 13:45 via Zoom.

Die Chancen und die Herausforderungen der Kombination von Daten aus unterschiedlichen Quellen beschäftigen die empirischen Sozialwissenschaften zur Zeit stark. An der Tagung stellen wir Best Practices vor und diskutieren die Voraussetzungen und konkrete Anwendungsbeispiele für die Kombination unterschiedlicher Daten.

Diese Veranstaltung wird von der SAGW organisiert. Einige Referenten sind Forschende bei FORS.

Programmdetails

Die Anmeldung erfolgt via Webseite der SAGW.