The Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS) maintains a national social science data archive, facilitates access to official statistics micro data, and represents Switzerland on the Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA). In addition, FORS combines research infrastructures like the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), the Swiss Election Study, the Swiss Social Report, and the Swiss parts of several cross-national surveys (European Social Survey, International Social Survey Program, Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe SHARE, Luxembourg Income Study). FORS activities are co-financed by the Swiss Confederation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and its host institution, the University of Lausanne.

FORS is a primary Swiss centre for preservation of social science data produced in the country and has extensive experience and existing systems for the storage, documentation, and dissemination of complex datasets. It is consortium member to the FP7 Data without Boundaries project.

Source: SERSCIDA