This Special Issue brings together a large variety of contributions dealing with the influence of issues and issue competition, the structure of attitudes towards immigration and international cooperation and a series of non-policy factors such as campaign consultants and the rise of female representation in Switzerland. In this introduction we place the contributions in the broader framework of current debates in the international literature and stress the substantial and methodological innovations of the articles. Last, we offer some more general thoughts on almost 30 years of Swiss electoral research taking stock of the historical development.

Special Issue:The Swiss National Elections 2019

Issue edited by: Nathalie Giger, Denise Traber, Anke Tresch in the Swiss Political Science Review.

Reproducibility and transparency are important principles of open science when interpreting and understanding research results. Our new FORS replication service, powered by SWISSUbase, is a free solution for journals and researchers to facilitate the sharing of the replication materials underlying publications. The replication materials are fully citable with a DOI and under a CC licence.

How to deposit your replication materials

The FORS replication service

For any questions you can get in contact with the FORS Data Service at dataservice@fors.unil.ch

We are looking for a Junior Scientific Collaborator (80-100%) to strengthen the team of the Swiss Household Panel (SHP).

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The Swiss National Science Foundation has approved the project “Swiss Direct Democracy in the 21st Century” (SDD-21). Specifically, the influence of advertising campaigns and digital media on the mobilisation and opinion-forming of citizens, as well as the effect of individual moral concepts and political knowledge on voting decisions, will be investigated. For the analysis, data will be collected from representative online follow-up surveys conducted during the project period for each federal vote. In addition, a long-term panel will be constituted and focus groups will be conducted on selected votes.

Political scientists from eight Swiss universities, the Liechtenstein Institute and FORS are involved in SDD-21. FORS will be responsible for the data collection. The project should not only contribute to the integration of voting research in Switzerland and its international visibility, but also lay the foundations for the establishment of a long-term research infrastructure on voting behaviour.

Lead applicant: Prof. Daniel Kübler (UZH); co-applicants: Prof. Anke Tresch (FORS/UNIL), Prof. Marc Bühlmann (UniBE), Prof. Denise Traber (UniBS), Dr. Lionel Marquis (UNIL).

Project duration: 1 February 2023 – 31 January 2027

The ISSP is glad to announce the publication of the first partial data release of the ISSP 2020 Environment IV (ZA7650_v1.0.0), including data from 14 countries (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Thailand, and Taiwan).

Central themes of the ISSP 2020 are attitudes towards environment related issues, such as environmental protection, respondents´ behavior and respondents´ preferences regarding governmental measures on environmental protection.

Data and documentation on this release can be found here:

https://www.gesis.org/en/issp/modules/issp-modules-by-topic/environment/2020

The European Social Survey (ESS) announces that its data and documentation will only be accessible through a new ESS Data Portal from Monday 30 May onwards.

The new data portal will allow users to search and download European Social Survey data on 18,000 questions and variables contained in 60 downloadable data files. This service is a work in progress, to improve the access to ESS data.

Access the portal here: https://ess-search.nsd.no/

Swiss ESS data

The ESS Data Portal includes all Swiss ESS data. In addition, the ESS data from Switzerland can be obtained via SWISSUbase, the Swiss research data service for the archiving and sharing of research data.

http://swissubase.ch

For detailed information on the new ESS data access portal, consult this news.

SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, is a research infrastructure for studying the effects of health, social, economic and environmental policies over the life-course of European citizens and beyond. In Switzerland, SHARE is conducted by FORS and the University of Lausanne.

In its SHARE-ERIC Council Meeting on 17 May 2022, the members of the SHARE-ERIC Council therefore unanimously adopted the decision to extend the duration of SHARE-ERIC beyond 2024.

Foundation for the Council’s decision and a first step to long-term sustainability was the creation of the SHARE Berlin Institute  in March 2022, which will house the international coordination of SHARE. Both processes – the move of SHARE from Munich to Berlin with the founding of the SHARE Berlin Institute and the continuation of SHARE-ERIC beyond 2024 – are key steps to sustain the SHARE research infrastructure.

Read the entire press release: http://www.share-project.org/home0/news/article/share-becomes-long-term.html

Are you currently working with social science data you got from FORS? Or are you planning to do so in the next few months? Then consider submitting your paper to the FORS Data Re-use Award 2022 and get the chance to win up to 1’000 CHF.

The Award will be given to young researchers who carry out excellent research that is based on secondary data from SWISSUbase.

The deadline for submission is October 1, 2022.

Further information: https://forscenter.ch/fors-data-reuse-award-2022/

Lamprecht & Stamm conducted a study on the impact of the pandemic on volunteering on behalf of the Migros Culture Percentage and with data from the FORS COVID19-MOSAiCH study.

People who volunteer have weathered the pandemic better in several ways than those who do not do any volunteering. Although not every person who volunteers is more trusting of political and social institutions, they are more satisfied with their lives, receive more social support, are less socially isolated and suffer fewer bouts of depression.

More information on the study

The summary of the study

Further information on the MOSAiCH survey.

The SWISS Houshold Panel SHP has just published wave 22.

You can find all the data sets on our platform SWISSUbase (Living in Switzerland Waves 1-22 + Covid 19 data).

Wave 22 contains the two modules Social participation and Political behavior and values and three new questions on feelings towards LGBTIQ+ individuals.

Data access

You can access the new data here: https://doi.org/10.48573/h4k0-2g41

The 2021 Annual Report showcases our research, our data services, infrastructure and collaboration programs and publications. The report also summarize all of the activities associated with our national and international surveys.

In the editorial of the report, FORS Director, Prof. Georg Lutz, highlights the fact that research infrastructures are becoming increasingly important to enable and facilitate research and that FORS rightly contributes to the construction, connection and operation of research infrastructures in a variety of ways.

Consult the FORS Annual Report 2021.

SWISSUbase, the new research data service for the archiving and sharing of research data was launched for the social sciences community on December 14, 2021. FAIR compliant, SWISSUbase provides archiving aligned with international standards; multi-lingual search capability; connectivity with European Research Infrastructures such as CESSDA for the social sciences; and support and consultation for data management and sharing.

SWISSUbase replaces the original FORSbase for the social sciences and will be expanded to include additional disciplines. The objective of SWISSUbase is to ensure that research data and metadata across different disciplines are preserved and accessible for the long-term.

Explore accessing and depositing data on SWISSUbase.

To receive more news and updates on SWISSUbase, you can subscribe directly on your SWISSUbase account profile.

For more information, contact support@swissubase.ch

Save the date ! A live webinar will take place on March 31 (1-2 pm) to present SWISSUbase to the Swiss social sciences community. Registration for the webinar will open soon.

After a very successful 2021 edition, we are happy to publish the 26th Summer School programme.

The Summer School in Social Science Methods has been conceived for those who feel the need to refresh, deepen and widen their methodological knowledge and skills, whatever their professional situation: student, researcher or practitioner.

Even in COVID-19 times, researchers should take care of improving your methodological skills: we guarantee the organization of the 26th Summer School again this year. Our goal is to organize it in presence but should the situation require it, the summer school will also switch to remote mode.

Read the USI COVID-19 Protection provisions

Register here!

Organised by USI, supported by FORS.

We are happy to announce the release of the MOSAiCH/ISSP 2021 data on “Health and Health Care” and related topics, fielded in spring 2021.

The data and documentation on this release can be found here: https://www.swissubase.ch/fr/catalogue/studies/20040/17948/overview

The thematic focus of the 2021 edition lies on “Health and Health Care II”, the current module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) which is repeated for the second time. This international part is supplemented by selected socio-demographic questions, as well as a module composed of Switzerland specific questions.

Check out our latest guides on survey methods and data management written by our experts at FORS.

Our latest guides discuss the topic of data protection in connection with legal considerations for research in Switzerland, the notion of replication in the social sciences and the idea representativeness of surveys and its analysis.

Representativeness of surveys and its analysis (FORS Guide N°15), Michael Ochsner

Replication in the social sciences (FORS Guide N°16), Marieke Heers

Data protection: legal considerations for research in Switzerland (FORS Guide N°17), Pablo Diaz

All FORS Guides can be consulted here: https://forscenter.ch/publications/fors-guides/

Published in the Journal of Economics and Statistics in 2021, Robin Tillmann and colleagues describe the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) as an ongoing, unique, large-scale, nationally representative, longitudinal study in Switzerland (N = 9828 households and N = 15,882 persons interviewed in 2020). Collecting data on households and individuals since 1999, the SHP aims to provide both continuity and innovation in measurement and data collection. Examples of innovation are the combination of retrospective and prospective longitudinal data, the combination of survey modes notably in refreshment samples and additional studies oversampling specific population groups.

This article provides an overview of the SHP – focusing on the survey’s key design features, content, data collection and adjustments, possibilities for cross-national comparisons, data use and accomplishments. Read more.

On December 3, 50 researchers discussed the advantages and challenges of implementing the Generations and Gender Program (GGP, (https://www.ggp-i.org) in Switzerland as part of the SWISS RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES ROADMAP 2023. The proposal for GGP implementation is currently prepared by a team of researchers at the University of Lausanne in collaboration with the Swiss Center of Expertise in Social Sciences (FORS).

Support letter

To show that this endeavor is relevant to the whole Swiss research community, your support is of utmost importance.

We therefore ask you to sign the following support letter which will be attached to the Swiss GGP application: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dtpQO4DhGROSNB5czXY-q5av-P8cBRGI/edit

Deadline: Early January 2022

Detailed information on the GGP program and the presentation slides of the December 3 event:

https://forscenter.ch/generations-gender-programme/

 

The ISSP is glad to announce the publication of a second partial data release of the ISSP 2019 Social Inequality V (ZA7600_v2.0.0), including data from Switzerland and 21 other countries.

The data and documentation on this release can be found here: https://www.gesis.org/en/issp/modules/issp-modules-by-topic/social-inequality/2019

Data access including download in SPSS or Stata format, is offered online via GESIS Search at:
https://search.gesis.org/research_data/ZA7600?lang=en

CESSDA is seeking qualified candidates for the full-time position of Director, starting in March 2022.

Director of CESSDA

The director is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Scientific Officer and legal representative of CESSDA ERIC, leading the team and organisation.

Find out more about the position:

The studies MOSAiCH and SHARE present results on the willingness to get vaccinated.
A new study using SHARE data reveals which factors influence the willingness for vaccination across Europe.

Consult the press release
Consult the scientific article

The following contribution in DeFACTO, based on the FORS COVID-19 MOSAiCH survey, focuses on issues around vaccination in Switzerland.

The willigness to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Switzerland: Who wants it, who does not and why? by Gian-Andrea Monsch, Karin Nisple, Stephanie Steinmetz.
The German and French versions are published on the DeFacto platform.

Technical information on the FORS MOSAiCH COVID-19 survey

All information on the MOSAiCH survey including how to access the free data.

FORS (representing Switzerland) was elected by the General Assembly of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) to provide the secretariat for the next term (2021-2024).

The International Social Survey Programme is a cross-national collaboration programme that has been conducting annual surveys on topics relevant to social science research for three decades. Established in 1984, the ISSP has grown to about 50 members from around the world and covers many cultures and languages. As the surveys are designed for replication, they can be used for both cross-national and cross-time comparisons laying the base for a vast range of substantial and methodological research.

As a member-led association, the participating countries take on the various organizational and content-related activities of the programme on a rotating basis. The secretariat is appointed for a period of 3 years (renewable once) and handles all organizational and coordination functions of the programme.

The ISSP Secretariat will be headed at FORS by Prof. Stephanie Steinmetz and Dr. Marlène Sapin.

Find more information about the ISSP here: www.issp.org
In Switzerland, the ISSP modules are fielded as part of the MOSAiCH project: www.forscenter.ch/mosaich

Sandrine Morel from the University of Lausanne has created a new household typology that takes account of the diversity in Swiss families (single parents, unmarried parents, blended families). The new variable identifies whether children are from the current relationship, a previous relationship, or from both.

You can use the syntax for the year 2018 (wave 20) or adapt it to your needs. Find the new family typology here (constructed variables > family typology).

A new cumulated MOSAiCH COVID-19 dataset, including the three COVID-19 panel waves fielded from spring 2020 to spring 2021, is now available on FORSbase. The dataset provides insights into the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on society in Switzerland:

https://forsbase.unil.ch/project/study-public-overview/17243/0/

All information on the MOSAiCH COVID-19 survey can be found here.