KNAW calls for better access to social science databases

Citation

(2004), "KNAW calls for better access to social science databases", The Electronic Library, Vol. 22 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2004.26322aab.013

KNAW calls for better access to social science databases

KNAW calls for better access to social science databases

The availability and accessibility of the databases used by researchers in the social sciences need to be improved. A number of "expertise centres" should be set up at Dutch research institutes as well as a national centre for data services that brings together providers of data. These are among the recommendations in an advisory report ("Networked data services; towards a future data infrastructure for the social sciences in The Netherlands") on a new and improved data infrastructure for the social sciences that has been compiled by the Social Sciences Council of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (SWR-KNAW).

Researchers in the social sciences have been using existing databases much more intensively in the last two decades, primarily because of advances in ICT, improved research methods and techniques, and the fact that data can now be gathered and reused on an international scale. As things stand at present, professional data providers in The Netherlands are not up to the task of meeting the increased and refocused demands of researchers for data. This creates a need for a national centre for data services in which existing data providers such as the Scientific Statistical Agency (WSA) of The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the Steinmetz Archive and The Netherlands Historical Data Archive (NHDA) of The Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI-KNAW) join forces and develop their expertise further.

The SWR also recommends that expertise centres should be developed at Dutch research institutes, focusing on a range of themes in the social sciences. Databases should be made available and accessible at the expertise centres for researchers in the social sciences specializing in those themes.

It is important that the national centre for data services should form a network with the expertise centres. The SWR recommends that the Academy and NWO set up a scientific steering committee in the near future to promote the formation of this network.

The KNAW Board has decided to take close account of the SWR recommendations in determining the future of the various components of NIWI-KNAW, which is to be abolished in its present form in the foreseeable future. The Board intends to enter into consultations with NWO in the near future on the recommendation concerning a national centre for data services.

"Networked data services; towards a future data infrastructure for the social sciences in The Netherlands" (September 2003) (www.knaw.nl/publicaties/pdf/20031077.pdf).