Benefiting from a European infrastructure

Six years - that's how long our Serbian colleagues have been working on officially becoming part of CESSDA ERIC, the European coalition of social science data archives. And January 2019 will be their moment to join. Numerous institutions from other countries are also striving to become members of CESSDA ERIC, because there are a number of advantages. A sustainable research infrastructure facilitates teaching, learning and research in the social sciences. This infrastructure should cover as many European countries as possible so that archives can support users in the best possible way.

Austria actively involved

AUSSDA is CESSDA service provider in Austria. That means, among other things, that we can participate in the development of European projects and thus pass on CESSDA services directly to our community. One example are the extensive training materials on the subject of data management.  In this context, AUSSDA was given the opportunity to share experiences with new and emerging archives. The creation of an archive is associated with many decisions and established service providers can give tips.

Decisions in the first year

In the early stages of an archive, many areas have to be developed simultaneously. Some examples are:

·         mission statement and strategic planning

·         legal and other professional expertise

·         administration

·         services in the core areas

·         communication with the community

The sequence and prioritisation of developments must also be defined and, if necessary, adapted quickly. In addition, we presented the areas of data acquisition as well as data ingest and processing. If you want to learn more, the presentations of this event will be made available here: https://www.cessda.eu/belgrade2018/