The European Commission has facilitated the funding of the Infra4NextGen project, where Centerdata plays a pivotal role. This initiative will provide essential input for the NextGenerationEU recovery plan and the EU’s youth policy.

The need for Infra4NextGen

Professor Rory Fitzgerald, Director of ESS ERIC and coordinator of Infra4NextGen, explains:
“Social science research infrastructures in Europe hold a wealth of data that is highly relevant to the priorities of NextGenerationEU and the EU’s youth policy. However, this data is currently dispersed and sometimes difficult to access. Infra4NextGen will bring together Europe’s leading social science initiatives, creating valuable resources for policymakers and academics alike. By offering accessible, effective, and tailored data summaries, supplemented with new insights from web panels and forums capturing youth opinions, the project will support informed debate and evidence-based policymaking.”

Project overview

Over four years, Infra4NextGen will consolidate outputs from major social science research infrastructures. The project will repurpose and adapt existing research services to align with the five pillars of the NextGenerationEU program:

  • Go for green
  • Digital transformation
  • Health
  • Resilience
  • Equality

These pillars aim to shape a greener, more resilient, and digital future for Europe.

Centerdata’s role

The already-established CROss-National Online Survey (CRONOS) Panel will gather data and insights on NextGenEU themes. For the first time, this panel will use DataCTRL, a tool suite developed by Centerdata. Centerdata will handle questionnaire programming, manage panels from various European countries with its SurveyCTRL tool, and process the collected data.

Organization

The project is coordinated by the European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ESS ERIC) and involves core partners such as CESSDA ERIC, the European Values Study (EVS), and the Gender and Generations Programme (GGP).

Approach

For each of the five themes, the project partners will first inventory relevant topics already addressed in surveys like the Eurobarometer, European Quality of Life Survey, ESS, GGS, EVS, and International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). This inventory will be developed by:

  • City, University of London (ESS ERIC)
  • Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) for Gender and Generations research
  • University of Milan for the European Values Survey

GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, representing CESSDA ERIC, will create harmonized and merged extracts from existing datasets, reducing the workload for analysts and increasing sample sizes. The processed data will be analyzed and presented as policy-relevant tables, visualizations, and commentary on a dedicated online portal.

New data will also be gathered later in the project using the CRONOS online web panel, spanning five phases in eleven countries: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, and the UK. The University of Essex’s Institute for Social and Economic Research (ESS ERIC) will handle data weighting.

CRONOS data will be processed by Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (ESS ERIC) and made available to the research community via a specialized portal organized by NextGenerationEU themes.

The CRONOS 3 panel will collect data in eleven countries with contributions from various institutions:

  • Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna (IHS)
  • Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon (ICS-UL)
  • Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
  • KU Leuven
  • National Centre for Social Research
  • Sciences Po
  • Social Science Research Center (HUN-REN T)
  • Umeå University
  • University of Ljubljana
  • University of Iceland
  • University of Turku

Additional data collection will focus on the NextGenEU themes and will be led by:

  • Cardiff University (Green Transition)
  • Bielefeld University (Digital Transformation)
  • NTNU: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Health)
  • Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Resilience)
  • TÁRKI Social Research Institute and University of Exeter (Equality)

King’s College London will organize workshops in four countries, bringing together young people (18–34 years old) to discuss these topics.

Next steps

An educational tool called E-NextGen, developed by EUROGEO (European Association of Geographers) and Tilburg University, will make project data accessible for classrooms and the public. This tool will feature interactive maps, infographics, blog posts, research briefs, and user-friendly features to explore the five themes.

Comprehensive training materials based on project findings and NextGenerationEU areas will be created by:

  • CESSDA ERIC
  • City, University of London (ESS ERIC)
  • GESIS
  • KNAW
  • University of Ljubljana (CESSDA ERIC)
  • University of Milan
  • AUSSDA with contributions from the Universities of Vienna and Innsbruck

This will include online training sessions, 17 webinars, nine workshops, and video series with demonstrations, tutorials, and discussions.

Participants

Six organizations represent ESS ERIC and CESSDA ERIC:

  • City, University of London (UK)
  • GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (Germany)
  • University of Essex (UK)
  • University of Innsbruck (Austria)
  • University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
  • University of Vienna (Austria)

An additional 24 organizations from across Europe also contribute, including universities, research institutions, and specialized agencies.