JC Gellidon / Unsplash

CESSDA and COVID-19

CESSDA and its national Service Providers strive to serve the research community despite the coronavirus crisis, and online services continue to function as usual. The CESSDA consortium is especially committed to supporting researchers working on COVID-19 related research.

On this page you can find information about COVID-19 specific resources from the CESSDA consortium and other relevant sources.

The COVID-19 Interview Series

CESSDA asks ten questions to Sébastien Oliveau

Sébastien Oliveau is Associate Professor at Aix-Marseille University and Director of PROGEDO (CNRS/EHESS), the French National Data Infrastructure for Social Sciences and the French Service Provider for CESSDA.

Read the interview

Gustav Nilsonne

Meet Gustav Nilsonne, a researcher in neuroscience and metascience at Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University.

Read the interview

Helena Laaksonen

In this second article in the series, we talk with our CESSDA COVID-19 Ambassador to gain insight into the current situation

Read the interview

Bernt Aardal

CESSDA asks Bernt Aardal, a renowned political scientist from the University of Oslo, a few questions about COVID-19 and political elecions.

Read the interview

COVID-19 in the CESSDA Data Catalogue

The CESSDA Data Catalogue is a platform for researchers wanting to find and reuse social science and humanities research data. It contains metadata of surveys in the holdings of CESSDA's Service Providers. The data files themselves are available through each individual data archive. All COVID-19-related metadata will be harvested to the Data Catalogue as they become available to CESSDA Service Providers.

Covid in the Data Catalogue

Covid-19 in the Data Catalogue

Some relevant data related to pandemics in the catalogue:

COVID-19 activities from CESSDA Service Providers

COVID-19 resources by country are listed below.

For COVID-19 related studies from the social sciences in Austria, AUSSDA provides a COVID-19 database with a fast-track publishing option.
AUSSDA, with the support of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF), has launched the project COSSDA - COVID-19 Social Science Data Hub Austria. It provides the research community with a basis for empirical analyses on COVID-19 topics in Austria and beyond. More about the project here.

The SODHA team is in contact with three Belgian scientific institutions which are carrying out surveys on the social consequences of COVID-19 with the aim of convincing these institutions to transfer the research data to their repository.

  • A webpage on data resources relevant to the pandemic has been made availble: Pandemic Covid 19 / SARS-CoV-2 - sociological data related to the current situation (in Czech).
  • Research teams in the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences are involved in the organisation of surveys prepared by wider research teams:
  • Data from the latter will, depending on the response rate, be used for both making an estimation of the current immunity rate and for a deatiled analysis in the future, using the CHPS database.
  • The Danish National Archives is collecting data from the general public in Denmark on the corona pandemic so that it is preserved for posterity.
    • The corona pandemic has changed our lives from one day to the next. People's experiences are an important contribution to the future understanding of how we and our everyday lives are affected. Therefore, the National Archives wishes to collect stories, pictures, videos or thoughts about the situation, so that they can become part of the National Archives' collections and part of Danish history.
    • Find out more here (in Danish)
  • What does the corona crisis mean for your organization, company or association?
    • The Danish National Archives is also encouraging organisations, companies and associations to submit documentation on how they are handling the crisis and how it has affected them. The corona pandemic leaves deep scars on the economy of society. How companies, organisations and associations handle, experience and navigate the crisis is an important contribution to the future understanding of how the pandemic affects society. The documentation can thus become part of the National Archives' collections and part of Danish history.
    • Find out more here (in Danish)

FSD presents datasets (in English) where researchers can find variables related to pandemics as well as in Finnish.

  • The Elipss Panel of the CDSP (supported by PROGEDO) is supporting the survey "Facing Covid. Social distancing, cohesion, and inequality in France in 2020" (Faire face au COVID-19. Distanciation sociale, cohésion, et inégalité dans la France de 2020) of the Sociological Observatory of Change (some information is available in English). The data produced will be integrated into the PROGEDO data catalogue.
  • The University Data Platforms (UDPs) of Grenoble, Strasbourg and Toulouse have come together in support of the HS3P-CriSE project. The HS3P-CriSE project is the national coordination project ensured by CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) and INSERM (National Institute for Health and Medical Research). The CNRS and Inserm have joined forces "to develop structuring initiatives in the field of SHS and public health around research on Covid19 and, more generally, on infectious diseases and major health and environmental crises". English translations are available.
  • The UDP of Aix-Marseille has set up a monitoring platform (DemoMed) with official statistical resources concerning the situation of the epidemicin the Mediterranean countries (in english).
  • A call for the creation of an interdisciplinary working group in the human and social sciences entitled CODE-VIRUS (Coordination interDisciplinaire pour l'Etude de l'impact sociétal du CoronaVIRUS) was launched by MSH-Alpes in March.
  • The Nanterre University Data Platform produced a blog post which takes stock of the health-related surveys available in our catalogue (in French).
  • Corona data at GESIS: The coronavirus has a firm grip on the world and confronts us with a number of questions. How will Germany get through the corona crisis? What fears do people have? How informed does the population feel? These and other questions can be answered with this collection of data. Further data on Corona is constantly being added and can be found via the GESIS search.
  • The GESIS Panel offers researchers the opportunity to collect survey data on the current outbreak of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in Germany via a fast-track procedure. The GESIS Panel is a probability-based mixed-mode panel with currently about 5000 respondents.
  • Four fast-track slots are offered in the upcoming waves.
    • Two slots are available in wave hc, which will be fielded from mid-June to mid-August.
    • Two additional slots are available for scientific submissions in wave hd, to be fielded from mid-August to mid-October.
  • The GESIS blog features several articles related to COVID19:

Through its national science portal NARCIS, DANS provides scientific information about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and related subjects such as epidemiology, virology and crisis management. The news item is available here.

A survey about the impact of the pandemic on the social life of people living in Portugal was conducted between 25-29 March 2020 by ICS-ULisboa (the host institution of CESSDA Service Provider APIS) and ISCTE-IUL. A report is available with some results from this first round (in Portuguese).

  • A webpage on data resources relevant to the pandemic has been made available on the website of ADP: Collection of COVID-19 data (in Slovenian and English).
  • ADP offers researchers the opportunity to deposit their COVID-19 data via a fast-track procedure: read more on how to deposit COVID-19 data (in Slovenian and English).
  • ADP created a list of data resources by topic where researchers can find variables related to pandemics: read more on the themed studies in the ADP data catalogue (in Slovenian and English).

The Swedish COVID-19 Data Portal provides information, guidelines, tools and services to support researchers in utilising Swedish and European infrastructures for data sharing, in particular the European COVID-19 Data Portal (see the news item: A National Data Portal Makes It Easier to Research COVID-19).

Questions on COVID-19 were included in various FORS surveys and then made available to researchers in Switzerland. Below is a selection of surveys with research results. All data are on FORSbase.

  • MOSAiCH-ISSP: a three-wave online panel survey with questions on the coronavirus pandemic and the measures to control the spread of the virus was added to the annual social survey MOSAiCH. The first wave was fielded from end of April to mid-June 2020. The results of the COVID-19 survey are summarised in factsheets about well-being, family, work, work-life balance, and politics.
  • The Swiss Household Panel has conducted a special wave to assess the living conditions during the COVID-19 semi-lockdown in spring 2020.
  • The Swiss Election Study Selects: in the fourth wave of the Selects Panel Survey (September-November 2020), there was a block of questions on COVID-19. The questions not only cover citizens’ opinions on the role of the Federal Council, Parliament, and cantons in the crisis management, fundamental civil rights, the relationship between the economy and public health but also investigate populist attitudes and work-related changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Swiss COVID-19 Data Symposium (23.03.21): it gave social science researchers an overview of different Swiss datasets that could be analysed to assess the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on numerous aspects of individuals’ everyday lives. Consult the Data Symposium website for free available data.
  • SHARE: In Switzerland, SHARE, the survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, is run jointly by FORS and the University of Lausanne. At the request of the European Commission, a telephone survey investigating the impact of the epidemic among SHARE respondents was set up. The aim was to investigate the impact of the epidemic on physical health, mental health, medical follow-up and compliance with health measures. Find out more on the SHARE website.

For detailed information, consult the FORS COVID-19 webpage.

  • The UK Data Service has launched a COVID-19 themed page which presents a table lists studies that are currently investigating the impact of COVID-19 in the UK, the topics they cover and further information from the agencies running them.
  • The UK Data Service has released a special 'Lockdown Update' newsletter to keep users informed of its activities during what has been an unprecedented period of crisis and upheaval. This latest edition covers details of activities from the past six weeks and includes information on how the UK Data Service, researchers and journalists are adapting to the new reality and using data to inform responses to the emergency.

Other COVID-19 resources

The COVID-19 Data Repository is a repository for data examining the social, behavioral, public health, and economic impact of the novel coronavirus global pandemic. This is a free self-publishing option for any researcher who wants to share data related to COVID-19. Keenly aware of major world events (both planned and unexpected) that will have our data users looking for resources, ICPSR staff have put together this 2020 Resources list that we will update throughout the year.

WageIndicator is surveying people around the world to discover what makes the Coronavirus lockdown easier (or tougher), and what is the COVID-19 effect on our jobs, lives and mood. Find out about the survey. Read the Highlights from 18 May 2020: Working parents feel more depressed because of corona than childless workers.

CoronaWhy is a globally distributed, volunteer-powered research organisation, trying to assist the medical community’s ability to answer key questions related to COVID-19.

The RDA Working Group on COVID-19 aims, amongst other objectives, to define detailed guidelines on data sharing under the present COVID-19 circumstances to help stakeholders follow best practices to maximize the efficiency of their work. Several staff from CESSDA Service Providers are involved in this group which is working to bring experts together and produce results.

The World Pandemic Research Network (WPRN) has launched a platform for research communities that maintains a searchable global directory of research projects, surveys and initiatives about the societal and human impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The platform is supported by EASSH which is inviting its members "to play an influential role in the shaping of this global common for the social sciences and the humanities".

The European-funded Digital Response to COVID-19 "gives you access to a large resource database including open source software, websites, and platforms that are useful for public administrations, businesses, and citizens dealing with the ongoing crisis".

The European-funded COVID-19 Data Portal aims "to facilitate data sharing and analysis, and to accelerate coronavirus research". A dedicated European COVID-19 Data Platform is also being set up "to enable the rapid collection and comprehensive data sharing of available research data from different sources for the European and global research communities".

The European Comission requested Research Infrastructures and RI Projects to respond on how they can set up possible actions that can be oriented towards the objective "to create a European data platform for COVID-19 related information exchange". The SSHOC project can contribute the Social Data component of the European COVID-19 Data Platform. Consult the draft response on the webpage of the RDA-COVID19-Social-Sciences WorkingGroup.