Safe centre network - need for a safe centre to enrich European research

Abstract

"During the last years the microdata access to official statistics has considerably improved. On national level sophisticated approaches to access microdata are developed, e.g. remote access or job submission, but transnational access and international comparative research are still not easy to do. Two European projects, the ESSnet 'Decentralised and Remote Access to Confidential Data in the ESS' (DARA) (www.safe-centre.eu) and 'Data without Boundaries' (DwB) (www.dwbproject.org) are working on improvements of microdata access in that special area of social science research. At the moment, the common solution to work with highly detailed confidential microdata is still on-site stay. Users have to travel to the location where the data are stored and have to work within a Safe Centre. There is also the possibility to combine the advantages of Safe Centres and remote access in a single approach of a transnational secure network of Safe Centres to improve the access to international microdata. In that case, researchers don't have to travel to another country any more to analyse other national or international datasets; they can access the data from a Safe Centre in their own country. This paper stresses out the need for an organizational network of Safe Centres bound together by secure remote access connections." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Brandt, M. & Schiller, D. (2013): Safe centre network - need for a safe centre to enrich European research. (UNECE Working paper), New York, 10 p.