New Options for Access to Firm Data

Data sets that companies generate in their business processes can provide an excellent basis for a wide range of methodological and substantive research questions in the social and economic sciences and form the basis for top research projects. Currently, data from corporate collaborations is primarily used outside of Germany and is generally based on project-specific collaborations. A further use in other projects or by other researchers is typically excluded. The challenges for individual researchers in Germany are comparatively high and existing knowledge on how to organize corporate collaborations is is not commonly available. Company collaborations are characterized by many uncertainties for researchers and companies regarding data protection issues, the protection of business secrets, the costs for companies, changing decision-makers and long decision-making processes. The goal of this project during the first funding phase was to gain experience in collaboration, share that experience, and provide researchers with guidance on collaboration in Germany (and Europe). In addition, the project aimed to establish new collaborations that would enable the FAIR reuse of data via the FDZ.

As a result, an existing corporate partnership between the FDZ Ruhr and ImmoScout24 was strengthened. In addition to real estate on the private market (RWI-GEO-RED), the FDZ Ruhr also offers a dataset on commercial real estate. Furthermore, a new collaboration was established with the online marketplace AutoScout24. RWI-GEO-CARMKT provides a scientifically usable dataset on vehicle listings in Germany. The dataset is available for use as Scientific Use File Off-site.

In the second funding phase, the project focuses on the sustainable provision of data from the established corporate partnerships, as well as on the systematic documentation of research and data collaborations between academia and industry using established German corporate surveys. The project is being carried out in collaboration with the ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich e. V.