The way you access our data is changing

European Social Survey (ESS) data and documentation will only be accessible through the new ESS Data Portal from Monday 30 May.

The cumulative data file for all nine rounds, country-specific data, the ESS Cumulative Data Wizard and the Online Analysis Tool (Nesstar) will no longer be available on this date.

However, these resources will return in the near future via new products currently in development.

Meanwhile, the integrated data file for each round, methodological data and contextual information will still be available for download, but only via the ESS Data Portal.

To download the data in this new way, users will be required to create a new account on the ESS Data Portal following a short registration.

Users can do this through their institution (via eduGAIN), using their Google account or by creating a new account with their email address.

The changes are being implemented to improve our services but there will be some inconvenience caused as the migration of all our data into new tools takes place in the months ahead.

What datasets are available on the ESS Data Portal?

The latest version of the integrated data file for each of the nine rounds of our survey will be available to download from the ESS Data Portal in SAV, DTA and CSV formats.

Where countries were not included in the integrated file, this data is available in country-specific datasets.

Methodological data for each round is also available including data from the interviewer’s questionnaire, test data (MTMM), interview time data and contact form data.

All documentation and information about fieldwork in each country – including sampling, weighting and data collection information – is also available.

At this stage, datasets that include the ESS integrated file merged with Multilevel Data are available for rounds 4-9 in SPSS, Stata and SAS formats.

Multilevel Data is contextual data on crime, demography, the economy, education, health, immigration and political institutions collected by other data sources.

The changes also include an upgrade of the ESS metadata, moving from DDI-Codebook to DDI-Lifecycle. DDI-Lifecycle is specifically designed for cross-national and longitudinal surveys since it allows documentation of data across the entire life cycle.

In the next month, an improved tool will be launched to replace the ESS Cumulative Data Wizard, allowing users to create a subset of data by choosing a selection of rounds, variables and/or countries before download.

This means that users will be able to generate cumulative and country specific data files again soon.

The ESS Data Portal will also incorporate elements of the Online Analysis Tool for those who wish to analyse and visualise the data without downloading it.

Why are these changes happening?

The changes are being implemented due to the storage of data being moved from on-premises servers to a new cloud platform which will improve the user-friendliness of our data.

This new cloud-based platform will also enable increased ability to integrate with relevant European/global services such as EduGAIN, DataCite and the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

EOSC aims for all data collected across scientific disciplines to be made available to everyone in the same place.