Abstract

"Data about individuals and organisations are routinely collected across the Member States of Europe, through surveys, administrative and financial transactions. Yet access to these micro-data for research purposes, particularly across national borders, is often restricted for confidentiality or legal reasons. Despite the benefits that accrue to society from allowing comparative research to be undertaken using cross-national data sources (such as policy evaluation), researchers face significant barriers in making comparative analyses of data collected in more than one Member State. Legal restrictions on the dissemination and transfer of data, and the consequential cost of visiting the data within its country of origin, prohibit access. We present a new initiative to build a European Remote Access Network, as part of the Data without Boundaries programme, which arguably represents one of the greatest efforts of recent years to allow researchers from across the European Union to access data collected in more than one country" (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))