ESRA 2025 Preliminary Program

Monday 14 July    Tuesday 15 July    Wednesday 16 July    Thursday 17 July    Friday 18 July   

All time references are in CEST

Exploring Organizational Structures in Survey Infrastructures 2
Session Organisers	Dr Olga Grunwald (NIDI) Dr Roman Auriga (LIfBi) Mr Niccolo Ghirelli (ESS HQ (City St George's, University of London)) Ms Victoria Salinero-Bevins (ESS HQ (City St George's, University of London))
Time	Wednesday 16 July, 09:00 - 10:30
Room	Ruppert 002

The organization of survey infrastructures plays a critical role in shaping the effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of data collection efforts. However, there is no one-size-fits-all model. Each survey infrastructure has unique processes for task division and work distribution, influenced by their history, mission, scale, and operational goals. Understanding these variations is key for fostering collaboration, improving communication, and optimizing workflows across infrastructures.

This session invites presentations from survey infrastructures to share insights into their organizational structures. It will provide a platform for survey professionals to explain how their operations are divided, why they have adopted specific task allocation strategies, and how these structures impact their ability to deliver high-quality data. Speakers are encouraged to reflect on both the benefits and challenges of their organizational models.

Through comparative discussions, the session aims to uncover commonalities and differences in how survey infrastructures approach task bundling, specialization versus generalization, and outsourcing versus in-house operations. Additionally, this session seeks to spotlight infrastructure work as a legitimate and valuable career path in its own right. Often overlooked in favor of more traditional academic roles, infrastructure work encompasses specialized skills and essential contributions to the research process. By understanding and showcasing the diverse roles within survey infrastructures, the session aims to elevate the visibility of infrastructure careers and inspire professionals to see the potential for long-term growth and expertise in this field.

We encourage contributions from survey infrastructures of all sizes and specializations to foster a diverse and enriching dialogue.

Keywords: survey infrastructure, survey practice, organizational models

Papers

Panel Survey Life Spirals: A Framework for Longitudinal Survey Research

Mr Florian Griese (German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin) - Presenting Author
Professor Sabine Zinn (German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin)
Dr Christian Hunkler (Humboldt University Berlin)

The design and implementation of panel studies follow recurring processes often visualized as a Survey Life Cycle, which organizes survey tasks into distinct, sequential steps. While effective for single waves or cross-sectional surveys, this framework falls short when managing overlapping waves in longitudinal studies. To address this, we propose the Panel Survey Life Spirals, a framework capturing the dynamic and interconnected nature of successive survey waves.

The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), one of the world’s longest-running household surveys, highlights the challenges of overlapping waves. With extended fieldwork and a complex dataset, the SOEP team simultaneously works on multiple waves at different stages. For instance, in winter, the team prepares the wave for two years ahead, plans next year’s data collection, releases the current year’s data, and delivers training on the latest released wave. This overlapping workflow creates significant interdependencies between waves.

The Panel Survey Life Spirals framework enhances the traditional life cycle by addressing the overlapping, iterative, and interdependent nature of longitudinal surveys. It emphasizes:

- Interwave Dependencies: Critical stages, like sample definition, depend on timely completion of earlier waves.
- Continuous Learning: Lessons from prior waves improve quality and efficiency.
- Dynamic Chronology: The spiral visualizes multiple waves at various stages.

This paper outlines SOEP’s processes within the spiral framework, emphasizing their chronological positioning and role in ensuring data quality. By adopting the Panel Survey Life Spirals, researchers can address unique challenges in longitudinal studies and adapt their workflows.

As societal change accelerates and demand for reliable data grows, the Panel Survey Life Spirals offer a flexible yet standardized guideline for managing complex survey processes and producing high-quality data to meet evolving needs.

Organizational structure of SHARE

Ms Magdalena Hecher (SHARE BERLIN Institute) - Presenting Author
Dr Michael Bergmann (SHARE BERLIN Institute)
Dr Stefan Gruber (SHARE BERLIN Institute)
Mrs Theresa Fabel (SHARE BERLIN Institute)
Ms Stephanie Stuck (SHARE BERLIN Institute)

The Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a research infrastructure whose central coordination is located at the SHARE Berlin Institute (SBI) and which oversees 28 country teams in Europe and Israel. This requires a well-harmonized organization, also considering the 38 national languages that need a straightforward concept, e.g. for trainings and fieldwork material. Experience and path-dependency have led to a structure where fieldwork instrument programming is outsourced and cooperation with the SHARE Central development teams is organized in an agile project management style. The infrastructure organization is embedded in a complex legal framework of different boards and partner institutions, which make decisions on some aspects and provide room for others. This presentation aims to introduce the organizational structure from the perspective of the central coordination and elaborate on the benefits but also challenges of the current structure as well as future plans. It also aims to provide a broad overview of the different skills that employees must meet, exemplary career paths within the organization and the challenge of combining research and infrastructure tasks.

Survey management between project management and survey content management

Dr Roman Auriga (Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories) - Presenting Author

In the presentation, I will discuss different survey management structures based on the solutions developed at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) in Bamberg, Germany. There are two basic options for implementing survey management at LIfBi. One involves the integration of a study management center-a central department at the institute. In this model, project management and the management of survey content are located differently. In the other model, both areas are concentrated in more or less one work unit. I will discuss the rationale for this division and its consequences for knowledge management. I will also show the range of flexibility in terms of management in both models implemented at LIfBi.

Organizing Complexity: Matrix Collaboration in the AID:A Longitudinal Multi-Actor Study

Dr Janine Bernhardt (German Youth Institute (DJI)) - Presenting Author
Dr Andreas Herz (German Youth Institute (DJI))
Dr Anja Linberg (German Youth Institute (DJI))
Dr Susanne Ulrich (German Youth Institute (DJI))
Professor Susanne Kuger (German Youth Institute (DJI))

The longitudinal study "Growing up in Germany (in German: AID:A)" explores the multifaceted contexts and relationships shaping childhood, youth, and transitions to adulthood. Drawing on a nationwide probability sample of individuals aged 0 to 32, the study provides valuable insights for social reporting and research on well-being. Its interdisciplinary and multidimensional framework captures various aspects of individual and family life. AID:A employs a multi-actor design and integrates often-overlooked voices such as those of young children, children from disadvantaged families, and separated families.

This presentation offers an in-depth look at the organizational structure, academic roles, and survey management processes underpinning AID:A, conducted by the German Youth Institute (DJI). The study employs a matrix organization to bundle thematic and methodological expertise in so-called competence teams. Each team consists of members of the DJI’s thematic departments (children, youth/transitions, families/adults) and one pairing member of the methods department serving as the team head. The team heads constitute an interface within and between the departments, which ensures survey quality and efficient processes by linking the scientific study board, item developers, data managers, the research data center, consulting services, and data users. In close collaboration with the principal investigator, the team heads are also the drivers of the survey’s strategic and operational hub, handling study planning, survey design, fieldwork coordination, data management, data documentation, and public outreach.

After introducing the model of matrix collaboration in AID:A, the presentation reflects on the advantages and challenges of this organizational model for communication and decision-making processes. We also discuss the challenges for the team heads managing diverse interests and temporal bottlenecks and offer brief insights into tools we developed for our task management, resource allocation, and item-collection synthesis.

Organisational structure of the Generations and Gender Programme across the survey lifecycle

Dr Olga Grünwald (GGP Central Coordination Team, NIDI) - Presenting Author

The Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) is an international survey infrastructure dedicated to collecting and disseminating cross-nationally comparable data on family and life-course dynamics. At the core of its operations is the GGP Central Coordination Team (GGP-CCT), which plays a pivotal role throughout the survey data lifecycle.

The GGP-CCT’s responsibilities begin with engaging countries to participate in the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) by connecting with relevant stakeholders and supporting funding efforts. Once countries secure funding for running the GGS, the GGP-CCT provides national teams with templates, methodological guidance, and survey instruments programmed in Blaise. During the pre-fieldwork phase, it oversees quality assurance for questionnaire translations, assists with sampling strategies, and ensures that the survey instrument meets technical requirements. In the fieldwork phase, the GGP-CCT monitors progress, addresses emerging challenges, and ensures adherence to methodological standards. Post-fieldwork, the GGP-CCT leads data processing and documentation, including cleaning, harmonization, and preparing datasets for dissemination.

The success of the GGP lies in the clear division of responsibilities between the GGP-CCT and national teams, fostering collaboration across all stages of the survey lifecycle. However, the relatively small size of the GGP-CCT requires team members to take on multiple roles while maintaining their core responsibilities. To address the growing demands of large-scale international survey projects, the GGP-CCT is currently identifying gaps in its operational structure to better align its resources with the needs of national teams and data users.

This presentation will explore the GGP-CCT’s strategies for coordinating tasks across the survey lifecycle, both within the GGP-CCT and in collaboration with national teams. It will also reflect on the balance between specialization and generalization in task allocation and the challenges of centralized coordination.