CESSDA has released its 2024 Annual Report, offering a comprehensive overview of its activities and achievements throughout the past year. The report highlights how CESSDA continues to reinforce its role as a key player in the European and global research infrastructure landscape, supporting social science research through robust data archiving, technological development, and policy engagement.

Download the full CESSDA 2024 Annual Report here.

In the 2024 report, Helena Laaksonen, Chair of the General Assembly, reflects on her final year in the role, noting milestones such as Lithuania’s progression toward full membership and the inaugural CESSDA Conference in Split, Croatia. She also pays tribute to the CESSDA community’s collaborative spirit and highlights achievements including the 25th anniversary of the Finnish Social Science Data Archive and an OBE awarded to Professor Matthew Woollard for his contributions to data science.

CESSDA Director Bonnie Wolff-Boenisch underlines CESSDA’s evolving role as a recognised actor on the European stage, including chairing the Social Sciences and Humanities Open Cluster (SSHOC), and its successful evaluation through the ESFRI Landmark Monitoring process. She also welcomes incoming General Assembly leaders Matthias Reiter-Pázmándy and Vigdis Namtvedt Kvalheim.

Some 2024 Highlights

• Lithuania took major steps toward full membership in CESSDA ERIC, strengthening the representation of Baltic social science communities.

• The first CESSDA Conference marked the consortium’s 10-year anniversary, drawing stakeholders from across Europe for workshops and strategic discussions on data interoperability and cross-disciplinarity.

• CESSDA received positive feedback from the ESFRI Landmark Monitoring process, with praise for its geographic inclusiveness, service alignment, and impact on metadata standards and FAIR practices.

• A Memorandum of Understanding launched SSHOC Switzerland (SSHOC-CH), reflecting CESSDA’s expanding influence at national levels and support for open science.

• CESSDA continued its commitment to Ukraine, co-organising a webinar on access to research infrastructures for Ukrainian social science researchers.

• New and ongoing involvement in 15 EU-funded projects, including EOSC-Beyond, OSCARS, FAIR-IMPACT, Infra4NextGen, and QUANTUM, reaffirmed CESSDA’s strategic position in the European Open Science Cloud.

• Internal development progressed with enhanced tools like the CESSDA Data Catalogue, the European Language Social Science Thesaurus, and a newly revamped European Question Bank.

• The establishment of a Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and the growth of working groups on sensitive data and data citation signal new directions for innovation and policy.

Financially, the 2024 statements confirm CESSDA’s stable operations and continued investment in strategic development.

See the annual report and other CESSDA documents here.