New Data Spaces for Social Sciences

In order to more precisely research the major societal challenges of the coming decades, including digitization, climate change, and war- and pandemic-related societal changes, and to be able to identify the need for political action on this basis, the social sciences need innovative research data and methods. The German Research Foundation (DFG) has established the long-term infrastructure priority programme "New Data Spaces" (SPP 2431) ( https://www.new-data-spaces.de/en-us/ ) to open up and develop such new data spaces. In the first funding phase 16 projects aim to expand the analytical potential of existing longitudinal survey data, to achieve substantial progress in expanding the scope and strength of panel studies in Germany through various disciplinary perspectives, foci, and approaches, and to address the theoretical and methodological challenges of integrating different data types, modes of data acquisition, and respondent-driven designs. The projects are located in four research areas (1) exploration and integration of different data types, (2) respondent-driven designs, (3) Instrument validity, and (4) Multimodal data acquisition. A key feature of the projects is that representatives of the social sciences and computer science work together here,

In this paper we describe in more detail the challenges related to measurement quality in surveys identified by the SPP 2431 "New Data Spaces", present the research questions and the methodological and technical approaches of the projects that address measurement quality issues, and show how the methodological results and the technical solutions developed within the four research areas may affect data collection and measurement quality in standardised surveys.