Data infrastructures for the research of societal crisis phenomena

In crisis situations (epidemics, natural disasters, threats to internal and external security), the results of social science research are crucial. They can be used to derive social consequences and the needs for political action. The precondition for this is quality-tested empirical data.

In order to address the growing demand for crisis-relevant data, an online information platform is being set up and successively expanded as part of the KonsortSWD project “Vulnerability, Preparedness and Resilience in Crises – Data Infrastructures for the research of societal crisis phenomena “. The platform comprises structured data sets, data portals and repositories from various disciplines and non-scientific contexts that are useful for researching social crises and disasters. In addition to geo-referenced survey data, researchers can find other threat and crisis-relevant information such as environmental and climate data, health and epidemiological data, economic data, data from civil protection and emergency care, crime statistics or accident and insurance data. Various dimensions of crises are covered, the resources are provided with metadata and can be searched using filters.

In addition, a collection of survey instruments on the topics of vulnerability, preparedness and resilience of individuals, households and social structures will be created, which can be used in the development of questionnaires for population surveys. This will enable data pooling and comparability of results across different surveys.