Discussion Paper: Towards a Sustainable Swiss Research Infra-structure Policy, Funding and Governance Framework

Georg Lutz (FORS) and Rita Gautschy (DaSCH) have published a discussion paper addressing the current lack of a coherent funding and governance model for research infrastructures in Switzerland. They propose the introduction of a framework article in the Federal Act on the Promotion of Research and Innovation (RIPA) and suggest possible solutions for more consistent funding, governance, and monitoring mechanisms.

The proposed model includes joint funding, standardized governance structures, transparent access policies, and a coordinated monitoring framework. The authors also call for the creation of a national body to oversee RI policy and ensure coherence across the system.

This paper is an important reference for shaping future policy and ensuring the long-term sustainability of research infrastructures in Switzerland.

Read the paper: https://zenodo.org/records/15388177

The Selects cumulative dataset provides a pooled set of Swiss election survey data which covers the period between 1971 and 2023. Explore over 50 years of Swiss election surveys in one place.

Available on SWISSUbase: https://www.swissubase.ch/en/catalogue/studies/8862/latest/datasets/495/3794/overview

Read the Annual Report

FORS and the Swiss National Data and Service Center for the Humanities DaSCH have launched a new series of free online data management webinars for researchers in the humanities and social sciences.

The third online webinar of the FORS-DaSCH series about Data Management for the Social Sciences and Humanities will take place on May 28, 2025 (2:00-3:30PM).

It is devoted to authority data, standards and metadata. Rita Gautschy (DaSCH) will introduce you to the advantages of using authority data and standards in the humanities which ensure consistency, interoperability and discoverability across datasets. By providing unique and standardized identifiers for entities such as persons, places, and works, authority data facilitates metadata linking and prevents ambiguities. Standards such as the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) for images and the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for the encoding of texts enhance digital scholarship by enabling structured representation, annotation, and seamless integration of images and texts. The combination of authority data and standards ensures long-term data sustainability, machine readability and enhanced scholarly collaboration across disciplines.

Auriane Marmier (FORS) will focus on metadata in the social sciences and present an overview of widely used social science metadata standards, including the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI). She will highlight the specific features of DDI that make it particularly suitable for documenting social science data and present some of the products developed by DDI, such as the DDI Codebook and the DDI Lifecycle. The presentation will then introduce controlled vocabularies and thesauri commonly used in the social sciences (e.g., ISCO for occupations, ISCED for educational levels, and ELSST for social science concepts), and explain how they contribute to semantic clarity, data harmonization, and interoperability.

The webinar will conclude with a brief comparison of metadata practices in the humanities and social sciences, highlighting both common challenges and complementary approaches.

Registration

Register here for this webinar.

Further information on the series

To mark a quarter-century of longitudinal research in Switzerland, the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) and Transitions from Education to Employment (TREE) are pleased to announce a celebratory conference to be held at the University of Lausanne on June 4-5, 2025.

Keynote speakers

Corinna Kleinert – Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsverläufe
Flaviana Palmisano – Sapienza University of Rome

Conference Themes

The event will feature diverse thematic sessions, focusing on key areas such as:

• Education and Labour Market Pathways
• Health and Well-being Development
• Socio-economic Inequality and Mobility
• Family Formation and Dynamics
• Gender, Ethnic Minorities, and Migration
• Politics and Attitudes
• Methodological Issues in Longitudinal Surveys

Registration

We are pleased to inform you that we opened the registration! Please register for the conference here (until 20 May 2025).

Programm

The preliminary conference program is available here.

For further details, including venue information please visit the conference webpage.

Special issue

We are also pleased to invite you to contribute to the special edition of the Swiss Journal of Sociology: ‘25 Years of Longitudinal Studies in Switzerland: Analysing Social Dynamics in Switzerland and Beyond’, for which we welcome papers based on the conference contributions.
Please submit your proposal for a contribution to Sandra Hupka-Brunner (sandra.hupka@unibe.ch) and Robin Tillmann (robin.tillmann@fors.unil.ch) by 20 May 2025.

See the call of the special issue here.

We have published Wave 25 of the SHP.

You can find all the data sets on SWISSUbase (Living in Switzerland Waves 1-25 + Long file + Covid 19 data). Wave 25 contains the two modules Social participation and Political behavior and values with some new questions on attitudes towards asylum seekers and the protection of the environment.

You can access the new data here: https://doi.org/10.48573/swnc-bn46

Do you have questions about managing and sharing your social science research data? We’ve got answers!

Join Data Live, our new interactive monthly Q&A session hosted by the FORS Data Management and Archiving Services (DMAS) team. Whether you are facing challenges with your Data Management Plan, unsure about anonymisation, or wondering how and where to share your data, our experts are here to help – in real time.

When? Every second Thursday of the month, 13:00–14:00 CET
Where? Online via Zoom: https://unil.zoom.us/my/datalive
Language: English
No registration required

What can you ask?

Our DMAS team offers guidance tailored to social science researchers, with expertise across fields such as sociology, political science, education, psychology, economics, social work, and human geography. Ask us about:

• How to complete a Data Management Plan (DMP)
• What to include in a consent form
• Anonymisation: when and how
• Sharing data with personal information
• Best practices in data documentation
• Depositing your data with SWISSUbase
• Managing access to your datasets

If any of these questions sound familiar, don’t miss our upcoming sessions!

You will find further information on Data Live on this webpage

Planned sessions

• 10 April 2025
• 8 May 2025
• 12 June 2025
• 10 July 2025
• 14 August 2025
• 11 September 2025
• 9 October 2025
• 13 November 2025
• 11 December 2025

Swiss Journal of Sociology, Vol. 53(1), 2027

The Swiss Journal of Sociology is pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a special issue celebrating 25 years of longitudinal surveys in Switzerland. This special issue will focus on insights gained from longitudinal data and the variety of ways these data can be analysed to understand social dynamics over time. The special issue will be guest-edited by:

• Sandra Hupka-Brunner (University of Bern, Institute of Sociology)
• Ben Jann (University of Bern, Institute of Sociology)
• Robin Tillmann (FORS, Lausanne)
• Marieke Voorpostel (FORS, Lausanne)

This special issue will highlight the significant contributions of panel studies to understanding the complexities of human behavior and social processes. We invite contributions that examine dynamics, transitions, trajectories, trends, and life events, focusing on the SHP, TREE, or other longitudinal surveys such as Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and the Swiss Survey of Children and Youth (COCON). We also welcome contributions based on longitudinal data from other countries or comparative analyses.

Please submit your proposal for a contribution to Sandra Hupka-Brunner (sandra.hupka@unibe.ch) and Robin Tillmann (robin.tillmann@fors.unil.ch) by 20 May 2025.

All details on the call

We are pleased to announce the release of the MOSAiCH/ISSP 2024 data on Digital Societies and related topics, collected in spring 2024. The dataset and documentation are available here: https://www.swissubase.ch/en/catalogue/studies/20968/20654/description.

The MOSAiCH study 2024 focuses thematically on the completely new Digital Societies module of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), exploring beliefs in technology, Internet access and usage, attitudes towards governmental and private surveillance, the impact of digitization on communication patterns and media consumption or the perceived costs and benefits of digitization across different areas of life. The international part is complemented by selected socio-demographic questions and an additional module with questions specific to Switzerland.

Have you ever wondered how your data is handled when you participate in one of our FORS surveys? To ensure full transparency, we have created a short video that takes you behind the scenes of our data security processes.

Available in French, German, and Italian, the video explains how we protect your personal information, how data is anonymized, and why your participation is crucial for research in Switzerland.

Sécurité des données : un regard en coulisse de nos enquêtes FORS

Datensicherheit: Ein Blick hinter die Kulissen unserer FORS-Befragungen

La sicurezza dei dati: uno sguardo dietro le quinte delle nostre indagini FORS

This new version includes data from the fourth wave, which was conducted after the popular vote on September 22, 2024. The Swiss Election Study repeatedly interviews the same individuals over multiple time points to analyze changes in opinions and behaviors in the context of political events. The fourth wave thus provides valuable insights into the impact of the September 22, 2024 vote.

Access the data on SWISSUbase

Further information on Selects: www.selects.ch

The Sounding Board of Service Providers, under the commission of the National ORD Strategy Council, has just released a report addressing challenges and offering actionable recommendations to strengthen Open Research Data (ORD) practices in Switzerland. This comprehensive analysis focuses on five critical areas: Data Archiving & Sharing, User Access, Technical Interoperability, Data Reuse, and alignment with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

The recommendations aim to improve Open Research Data (ORD) practices in Switzerland and create a stronger, more sustainable system. The report focuses on solving challenges and taking steps to make ORD easier to use and share. It highlights the importance of working together, following international standards, and improving how data is shared and reused. These efforts will strengthen the research system in Switzerland and connect it better to global projects. The goal is to make data sharing simpler and support innovation in research.

Further information and the report: https://openresearchdata.swiss/resources/enhancing-ord-switzerland-sounding-board-recommendations/

As part of his doctoral thesis, Sebastian Bahr has published an interesting study based on the SHP on the relationship between urban greenery, mixed land use and life satisfaction in Switzerland. Taking into account different age groups, his study shows, among other things, that mainly the life satisfaction of older residents is positively influenced by a greener neighbourhood. It provides interesting insights for future urban planning.

You can find all the detailed results here.

Do you use SWISSUbase to share or access data? If you are interested in learning more about the platform, its services, or the teams and institutions behind SWISSUbase, visit our newly launched Info Website:
https://info.swissubase.ch.

Explore our comprehensive Help Centre, packed with resources and support to guide you in preparing, sharing, and accessing research data on SWISSUbase.

Share, find, and access research data on SWISSUbase:
https://www.swissubase.ch/
Discover our mission, services, Help Centre, and how we can support you: https://info.swissubase.ch

The ISSP is pleased to announce the release of the final version of the international ISSP 2021 Health and Health Care II data file (ZA8000_v2.0.0), which includes data from Switzerland and 29 other ISSP member countries and provides a global perspective on attitudes and behaviours towards health and health care.

The data and associated documentation for this release can be found at the following link:
https://www.gesis.org/en/issp/data-and-documentation/health-and-health-care/2021

In addition, the Call for Abstracts for the third ISSP User Conference is open until September 23, 2024. The virtual conference entitled “Celebrating 40 Years of the International Social Survey Programme” will take place on November 25, 2024. For more details please visit: ISSP User Conference.

We are pleased to announce the release of our updated search tool, designed to provide a detailed overview of the available SHP questions and variables. Visit our platform to make use of the updated search tool and discover the data you need.

Search by Domain
The tool allows users to search across various domains such as health, politics or employment, making it straightforward to find relevant questions.

Custom Search Options
For more specific needs, the custom search feature allows users to specify parameters such as variable names, labels or waves. This customization helps users find the exact variables they need.

Why Use Our Search Tool?

– Comprehensive Coverage: Access a wide range of questions/variables across numerous domains.

– Customizability: Fine-tune your searches for precise results.

– User-Friendly Interface: Navigate variable lists efficiently.

To download the SHP-data, please go to https://www.swissubase.ch/en/catalogue/studies/6097/20179/datasets

We are pleased to announce that the beta-version of wave 25 of the Swiss Household Panel has been published on SWISSUbase. Wave 25 contains the two modules “Social Participation” and “Political Behaviour and Values”.

You can access this preliminary data set here: https://www.swissubase.ch/en/catalogue/studies/6097/latest/datasets/932/3254/overview

Valérie-Anne Ryser and her colleagues at FORS have published a new study on the well-being of older adults before, during, and after the Covid-19 pandemic. They found that older people experienced increased stress levels as well as decreased life satisfaction and positive affect after the pandemic. The authors conclude that older people face more difficulties adapting to the new uncertain post-pandemic world.

Please find the detailed results here: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00127-024-02706-1.pdf

Based on the structure of the SPSS version of the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) data, a new R package developed by Gilbert Ritschard, Professor Emeritus at the University of Geneva, provides a function that searches for user-specified variable data in each of the wave files and assembles them into sequences. The function also matches the sequences with variables from unique files such as the personal and household master files (MP, MH), social origins (SO), or calendar of activity (CA) data.

https://cran.rstudio.com/web/packages/seqSHP/seqSHP.pdf

Survey data collected in the latest round of the European Social Survey (ESS) is now available for 13 countries.

Round 11 data has been published for Austria, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The data is available from the ESS Data Portal and is published with design weights only. Post-stratification weights will be added when data from the majority of countries is available later this year.

There are 31 countries who have participated in this latest round of our survey – a second data release including a larger number of countries will be published in November / December 2024.

Following on from a mixed mode approach implemented in the previous round due to the pandemic, Round 11 (2023/24) data collection has been conducted using face-to-face fieldwork (including video interviewing)[1].

Data is available for more than 200 questions asked in all countries, including respondents’ ancestry; education; employment; financial circumstances; household composition; and other socio-demographics including sex, age as well as information about their partners and parents.

Attitudinal data collected in every round focuses on climate change and energy; crime and justice; democracy and government; immigration; health and wellbeing; institutional and social trust; media and internet use; European, national and ethnic identity; perceived discrimination; political affiliation, interest and participation; religion; social exclusion; and values.

Round 11 includes two rotating modules that focus on gender, for the first time, and social inequalities in health, with many questions repeated from Round 7 (2014/15).

Proposed by a team led by Susan Banducci (University of Exeter), the gender module explores attitudes towards feminine and masculine identities, sexism, gender discrimination and gender equality.

The health proposal was submitted by the majority of researchers involved in the initial module and was led by Mirza Balaj (CHAIN Scientific coordinator Norwegian University of Science and Technology).

A combination of repeat and new items examine the social determinants of health in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they are related to income and wealth inequalities.

Further information: https://europeansocialsurvey.org/news/article/round-11-data-now-available

[1] Only one country (Czechia) has been forced to collect data using self-completion methods in this round, due to restrictions in the capacity of in-person interviewers.

On April 24, 2024, during a meeting involving over 60 representatives from national research infrastructures, the Swiss nodes of European ERICs and long-term projects, we launched the “Social Science and Humanities Open Cluster Switzerland (SSHOC-CH)”. This initiative aims to enhance collaboration, find synergies among social sciences and humanities infrastructures, and coordinate national resources to better support SSH scholars in their research and in managing their data in the spirit of Open Science and FAIR principles.

Beat Immenhauser, General Secretary of the Swiss Academy of Social Sciences and Humanities, commended the bottom-up formation of SSHOC-CH, noting its broad-based membership from the very beginning. This new organization seeks to streamline coordination across research infrastructures concerning European and national roadmaps, ERICs (European Research Infrastructure Consortium), and the creation of joint tools, platforms, and services.

Bonnie Wolff-Boenisch, Director of CESSDA (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives) and Chair of the SSHOC Open Cluster, praised the initiative, reflecting on SSHOC’s evolution from a top-down European Commission project to a sustained collaborative effort backed by a Memorandum of Understanding among European Research Infrastructures that is now also reaching out to the national level.

The founding meeting participants discussed a whitepaper contextualizing SSHOC-CH within the broader national and European framework, outlined the mission and potential activities, which include participating in the ongoing national policy dialogues, developing joint policies especially with respect to data management and sharing, creating an inventory of existing resources, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, enhancing community engagement, and coordinating funding strategies and training programs.

The founding assembly also formalized the organization by approving its Statutes, electing a Board with 10 members, and appointing Georg Lutz, director of FORS to the President position.

In his concluding remarks, Georg Lutz emphasized the need for the SSH community to leverage existing resources effectively. The SSH community should design and build robust, valuable projects and infrastructures that bring added value and services to the different research communities and that are professionally managed.

However, he also stated that this should lead to a better recognition of SSH infrastructure needs and ongoing clustering efforts by key policy makers in Switzerland. In the last round of the national roadmap process, only two new rather small projects made it on the infrastructure roadmap, and they still struggled to get funding, the entire roadmap process was biased against SSH projects. The SSH community in Switzerland is now at the forefront of building such a coordinating organisation.

In the coming months, the SSHOC-CH Board will start working on the priorities and thus lay the foundation for a stronger and better coordinated national infrastructure landscape.

For more information and to become a member: www.sshoc.ch

The Kohli Foundation for Sociology has recently announced this year’s laureate of the Infrastructure Prize for Sociology. The prize goes to the European Social Survey (ESS). “With its European focus and excellent accessibility, the ESS is one of the outstanding infrastructure projects for sociology and related fields”, says the Kohli Foundation.

For details see:

Infrastructure Prize for Sociology 2024: European Social Survey – Kohli Foundation

Members of the Swiss Household Panel team have published a call for contributions in Frontiers in Sociology for the Research Topic “Exploring Social Stratification Dynamics: Insights from Longitudinal Survey Data”. Interested researchers can submit their abstract until 31 July 2024.

The editors welcome substantive contributions from different conceptual and theoretical approaches, addressing topics such as education, employment, material reward, health, social networks, integration, political behaviour, or attitudes and values. Articles based on the SHP data and comparative analyses using the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) are particularly welcome.

Please find all the information here: fro.ntiers.in/RT64137

We are delighted to announce the release of our Annual Report 2023, a noteworthy achievement as we celebrate 15 years of contributing to social science research and data infrastructure.

The Annual Report 2023 captures our diverse activities and accomplishments throughout the year, showcasing our commitment to advancing social science research in Switzerland and beyond. The report features comprehensive insights into various aspects of our activities, including surveys, data management, infrastructure development, scientific collaborations, methodological research, data collection and analysis, outreach efforts, governance, staff statistics, and financial information.

In the editorial, FORS Director Georg Lutz describes FORS’ 15th anniversary as a significant milestone celebrated with many invited guests. This occasion provided an opportunity for reflection on the current state of FORS and its future direction.

The Annual Report 2023 is now available for download.

In 2024 in response to requests from past editions’ participants, we are introduction three new courses:

Bayesian modelling

Visual data and visual methods for the Social Sciences

Agent-based modelling

Check out the programme

Register here.