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With apologies for cross-posting ***** Press release Amsterdam, 14 October 2003 The Social Sciences Council of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) calls for better access to social science databases The availability and accessibility of the databases used by researchers in the social sciences need to be improved. A number of 'expertise centres' should be set up at Dutch research institutes as well as a national centre for data services that brings together providers of data. These are among the recommendations in an advisory report on a new and improved data infrastructure for the social sciences that has been compiled by the Social Sciences Council of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (SWR-KNAW). Researchers in the social sciences have been using existing databases much more intensively in the last two decades, primarily because of advances in ICT, improved research methods and techniques, and the fact that data can now be gathered and reused on an international scale. As things stand at present, professional data providers in the Netherlands are not up to the task of meeting the increased and refocused demands of researchers for data. This creates a need for a national centre for data services in which existing data providers such as the Scientific Statistical Agency (WSA) of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Steinmetz Archive and the Netherlands Historical Data Archive (NHDA) of the Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI-KNAW) join forces and develop their expertise further. The SWR also recommends that 'expertise centres' should be developed at Dutch research institutes, focusing on a range of themes in the social sciences. Databases should be made available and accessible at these expertise centres for researchers in the social sciences specialising in those themes. It is important that the national centre for data services should form a network with the expertise centres. The SWR recommends that the Academy and NWO set up a scientific steering committee in the near future to promote the formation of this network. The KNAW Board has decided to take close account of the SWR recommendations in determining the future of the various components of the Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI-KNAW), which is to be abolished in its present form in the foreseeable future. The Board intends to enter into consultations with NWO in the near future on the recommendation concerning a national centre for data services. The report Networked Data Services; Towards a Future Data Infrastructure for the Social Sciences in the Netherlands (September 2003) can be found as a PDF file at http://www.knaw.nl/publicaties/pdf/20031077.pdf For more information contact: KNAW, Het Trippenhuis, Kloveniersburgwal 29, Amsterdam. P.O. Box 19121, 1000 GC Amsterdam. Afdeling Voorlichting tel +31 (0)20-5510733, fax +31 (0)20-6204941. [log in to unmask] ***** European Commission on Preservation and Access (ECPA) P.O. Box 19121, NL-1000 GC Amsterdam, visiting address: c/o KNAW, Trippenhuis, Kloveniersburgwal 29, NL-1011 JV Amsterdam, The Netherlands tel. ++31 - 20 - 551 08 39 fax ++31 - 20 - 620 49 41 URL: http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/