Tasks and operating procedures

Access to research-relevant data has improved significantly in recent years. However, there are still restrictions on data access for key topics such as education, migration and healthcare. The RatSWD is working to improve institutionalized, legally compliant data collection and access for research, as well as the ability to link data across sectors.

The RatSWD works to ensure that the interests of empirical research and the research data infrastructure are systematically taken into account in the legislative process. It analyzes relevant draft legislation, provides timely and well-founded input for national and European legislative processes, and drafts position statements. The RatSWD continues to monitor the discussions and issues it has raised.

The research data centres (RDCs) accredited by the RatSWD make sensitive data – which is often generated in administrative processes – available to the scientific community for reuse via secure access channels and in accordance with transparent rules. Together with the accredited RDCs, the RatSWD has established a bottom-up governance structure to ensure the quality of the research data infrastructure. The accreditation of the RDCs is based on a set of criteria that, on the one hand, ensures that new RDCs comply with relevant standards. On the other hand, the accreditation criteria serve as the basis for annual quality control within the existing RDC landscape. These minimum standards are regularly revised and adapted to current developments and framework conditions in order to consistently align the infrastructure with the needs of research. A complaints office provides a channel for addressing issues related to data provision between data users and the RDCs with the RatSWD.

Digitalization offers great opportunities and potential for innovation, as new data sources are opened up and analytical methods are developed and refined. These data and methods offer immense potential for scientific research. The RatSWD monitors methodological and technological developments and makes recommendations regarding the framework conditions for legally compliant and quality-assured access to new types of data and their scientific analysis.

The RatSWD and KonsortSWD are continuing the series of conferences on social and economic data (KSWD). The conference serves to discuss current scientific topics in the context of empirical social, behavioural, educational and economic research and data production. The conference offers a joint forum for science, industry, government statistics, politics and (civil) society.

In the social, behavioural, educational and economic sciences, research ethics issues are increasingly being addressed in order to prevent research from causing harm to individuals, groups or entire societies.

At the same time, science-related values and norms such as freedom of research, open science and open data play a central role in the design of infrastructure. For example, the German Data Forum has already presented an overall concept for research ethics principles and review procedures in the social and economic sciences and offers a comprehensive collection of materials for ethics committees and researchers on the topic. The RatSWD sees itself as an organisation that raises awareness of research ethics and aims to create a forum for national and international exchange on research ethics issues.

The RatSWD supports researchers by contributing to a change in culture and values that supports research, but also by developing guidelines for action.

The German Data Forum is committed to the holistic handling of research data with the aim of ensuring the quality, protection and security of data and guaranteeing compliance with data protection regulations. By promoting comprehensive data governance, the organisational and legal framework conditions and requirements for the sharing and reuse of data in the disciplines of the RatSWD are to be further advanced.

With its extensive competence and knowledge of social, behavioural, educational and economic sciences in Germany, the German Data Forum is a central point of contact for international initiatives in the field of data policy, e.g. as an organisational member of the Research Data Alliance (RDA). The RatSWD will keep an eye on the question of how the internationalisation of the data infrastructure can be driven forward and how the disciplines represented in the RatSWD can be involved in European developments such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). It is setting up an International Task Force to strengthen international activities.

The German Data Forum has taken on the important task of involving the community within the framework of KonsortSWD. It involves the scientific community through the participatory legitimisation of its representatives and through close cooperation with the specialist societies. The RatSWD benefits from the fact that half of its members were elected on the recommendation of the relevant scientific societies and therefore have close ties to them. Involving the community also happens during RatSWD meetings and in the course of work in the working groups.