CESSDA PaSC

The UK Data Service led the development of a one-stop-shop to find datasets for social science research as part of its work with CESSDA, the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives.

The Product and Services Catalogue (PaSC) automatically collects metadata from service providers across Europe to help researchers find the data they need for their work. PaSC doesn’t hold data itself or provide access – instead, it allows users to search the holdings of CESSDA members across the continent and direct researchers to the source or service where they can obtain or analyse the data.

Because the metadata harvesting is done automatically and frequently, researchers can rely on the information being up to date and pointing to a valid service provider.

PaSC is one of a number of new initiatives the UK Data Service is working on to strengthen and widen social science data research infrastructure, helping researchers to work together in and across research fields, regions and countries.

UK Data Service contribution

• Lead partner: UK Data Service
• Funder: CESSDA ERIC
• Dates: Current phase: 1 January to 31 December 2017. Next phase 1 January to 31 December 2018.

Partners

• Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS)
• Finnish Social Science Data Archive (FSD)
• Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS)
• Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS)
• Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD)