Social Science Data Archiving and Needs of the Public Sector: the Case of Estonia

1. Social Science Data Archiving and Needs of the Public Sector: the Case of Estonia Rein Murakas Andu Rämmer University of Tartu, Estonia Estonian Social Science Data Archive (ESSDA)

2. Social science data archiving in Estonia: pre-history • In the former Soviet Union, and especially in Estonia, conducting of empirical social studies was possible from the 1960-ies • Teaching of sociological disciplines was started at the end of the 1980-ies • After re-establishing of Estonian independence, in 1993 a team of sociologists, psychologists, political scientists and human geographers from the University of Tartu made up an initiative group for creating a data bank on social sciences and began to work out the strategy of saving and usage of the research materials collected by the Estonian social scientists during the previous decades.

3. Social science data archiving in Estonia: establishing of ESSDA • 1994-1996 transferring old datasets from Soviet times supported by Higher Education Support Program (Soros Foundations) • 1996 – official establishing of ESSDA as interdisciplinary centre of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Tartu University and as a national social science data bank • In 1997 ESSDA became a full member of the European Council of Social Science Data Archives - CESSDA

4. Social science data archiving in Estonia: ESSDA’s post-establishing time • Problems of financing (mostly small projects) • Lack of tradition to share data among social scientists >>> the main task for ESSDA was to continue existing

5. Social scientists and data usage in Estonia • The number of real social scientists in Estonia is about 100-300 (depending how to define social sciences ???), 30-50 small research groups • Local data only (except the narrow branch of historical analysis of former Soviet Union) are not good basis for international peer-reviewed publications (currently main criteria in evaluation of social sciences in Estonia) • Research groups are using more public data from different comparative surveys (European Social Survey etc), general statistical data and data collected by joint projects with international parners >>> In the current situation there cannot exist very high demand for data from data archive’s traditional clients To survive in this situation the change of paradigm is needed

6. Alternative clients: public sector • Estonian public sector in 2008: about 130 000 people (34 000 in state-level central institutions), about a half of them with higher education • It is difficult to say how many of these people are “analysts” who need social science data, but in any case the number is much higher than that of social scientists

7. Base for using social information by public sector • The significance of using social information in legislation is stressed in Estonian public on the level of different development programs in the past years • The real situation based on surveys (Kasemets 2009)suggests: there is no intensive use of social science data • Possible changes are connected with the need for higher effectiveness of public sector (especially due to budget cuts) and also with realising different development projects financed from European structural funds

8. Public sector’s current data needs • Currently the main interest in public sector is having information about the conducted applied research projects • In Estonia, the results of applied research projects (mostly this means research reports, not research data) financed by the public sector should be publicly available • Reports were published on webpages of different public sector institutions, finding needed information is extremely difficult

9. Institutional barriers • But ESSDA’s idea to establish metainformation database about research projects wasn’t financially supported because every institution needs its own specific information(for example, an overview about research projects connected with higher education, multicultural problems etc) • The current solution: ESSDA is establishing a metainformation database topic-by topic depending on financing. That means: actually one database will be established, but different user interfaces (for educational surveys, for cultural surveys etc). Perspective: NESSTAR-based metainformation database covering all directions

10. Additional data needs • If reports are insufficient there is generally no interest from the public sector representatives to analyse data themselves (problems with skills, software etc). At the same time, they as a rule do not need complex secondary analyses, but quick answers to very concrete questions • Payment problems (especially in current situation when expenses of the public sector were cut) >>> ESSDA’s solution (not realised yet): to establish analytical service for commenting survey results and simple analyses based on different research data Possibility to use graduate students At least first time needs for financial support (to establish a tradition) in perspective can be self-financed

11. Perspective connected with teaching • The other direction to meet the demand of the public sector is teaching of general principles of data archiving to social science students • A large part of social science students are after graduating entering the public sector • At the University of Tartu every social science student (excluding law students) is getting at least some information about social science data archives and ideas of secondary analysis in introductory social science courses. There are also special data archiving study courses for sociologists. • In perspective, when our current students will start working in key positions in the public sector, they can better understand possibilities of secondary analysis based on data archiving and also can be more competent in using of resources offered by the data archive. • It is also possible to offer knowledge about data archiving to the current public sector analysts (for example, as blocks inside special courses about methodology and research design)

12. Thank you! Questions, please!