Novosti

Steering Board Meeting and discussion on WP4 (4)

The SERSCIDA Steering Board members met to discuss the project implementation and future plans in Zagreb on 17 September, 2013. The usual agenda items included issues concerning finances, communication and reporting. The project partners from Western Balkan countries provided an update of the developments that are leading towards the establishment of data services in each of their countries.

It was concluded that the Western Balkan partner countries now have a sound knowledge of the required structural, legal and policy changes that need to take place in order for the establishment of data archives. It is clear what the tasks are and which institutions will need to be involved in the establishment process.

Infrastructures and institutions that will host the data archives are identified and these are the SERSCIDA partners that will be working in collaboration with their host Universities or other partners. The countries also have an idea of what is the scope of their future data archives when it comes to services they will provide and kinds of data sets they will archive, as well as required resources for this (staff, equipment).

The SERSCIDA project has been met with much appreciation and interest both by policy makers (government institutions) as well as future data users (universities and researchers) which was expressed in high participation at the SERSCIDA International Conference and 4 National Round Tables.

Government institutions recognise the potential for using research funds more efficiently, as data produced will be available for other researchers and policy makers. Government institutions also see a benefit of the establishment of data archives in getting better quality information about researchers involved in social science research. Researchers themselves are keen to share their data and to use secondary data for research and university teaching.

The meeting took place in the beautiful settings of the Council Room of the Dean's Office of the University of Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. It was preceded by the meeting of the Work Package 4 - Building capacities for establishment of social science digital data archives.