The German Data Forum starts its 8th appointment period

With its constituent meeting on 7 and 8 September 2023, the Council for Social and Economic Data (RatSWD) started its 8th appointment period (2023‒2026). The 20 members of the RatSWD were appointed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) on 1 July 2023. Dr Katharina Pijnenburg from the BMBF is a guest on the RatSWD and opened the constituent meeting.

The RatSWD confirmed Prof. Dr. Monika Jungbauer-Gans (Scientific Director of the German Centre for Higher Education and Science Research (DZHW) and Professor of Empirical Research on Higher Education and Science at Leibniz University Hannover) as its Chair and Prof. Dr. Kerstin Schneider (Professor of Finance and Taxation at the University of Wuppertal and Chair of the WIB – Wuppertal Institute for Research in Economics of Education) as its Vice Chair.

During its constituent meeting, the RatSWD started its work planning for the 8th appointment period. In addition to its permanent tasks, such as advising politics and science on the further development of the research data infrastructure, it will again focus on central current needs of empirical social, behavioural and economic research. The Council members are now working out which topics will be the focus over the next three years. The work programme will be published by the end of 2023.

The German Data Forum (RatSWD) has been advising the German federal government and the governments of the German states on questions of research data infrastructure for the empirical social, behavioural and economic sciences since 2004. In the RatSWD, ten representatives of the social, behavioural and economic disciplines, legitimised by election, work together with ten representatives of data production.

The RatSWD is part of the Consortium for the Social, Behavioural, Educational and Economic Sciences (KonsortSWD) in the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). It sees itself as an institutionalised forum for dialogue between science and data producers and develops recommendations and statements. In doing so, it is committed to an infrastructure that provides science with broad, flexible and secure access to data. These data are provided by governmental, science-based and private-sector actors. Currently, the RatSWD has accredited 42 research data centres and promotes their cooperation.