Report on a survey of the needs and practices of Belgian researchers in social sciences in terms of research data management

This report presents the findings of a survey of the current situation of research data management among social science researchers in Belgium. The survey was a requirement of the Social Sciences Data Archive (SODA) project, which aims to set up a data archive and CESSDA service provider in Belgium. To this end, it was important to investigate whether researchers already practice data archiving, what are their needs in terms of research data mangement, if they had ever heard about data management plans (DMPs), and so on.

The general conclusion of the report is that the needs of Belgian social science researchers are very real and that setting up a data archive for long-term preservation of social science datasets will not only solve several problems but also respond to the growing demand of reliable and reusable data sources.