Norwegian Social Science Data Services

Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) is a national resource centre servicing the research community. Its main objective is to carry out services for researchers and students with regard to collecting and accessing data. NSD is also the Ombudsman for Privacy in Research.

Statistics Norway is NSD’s most important source for data. An agreement was entered into between Statistics Norway and NSD on the dissemination of data from Statistics Norway. The purpose of the agreement is to give researchers and students the easiest possible access to as much of Statistics Norway’s data as possible for use in research projects, without conflicting with prevailing regulations, and whilst safeguarding the protection of privacy for relevant data. NSD thus has a far-reaching collaboration with Statistics Norway.

NSD conducts and archives a number of comparatively-oriented surveys. NSD also disseminates data collected by researchers, research institutes and opinion poll institutes.

Data offer

NSD’s data archives contain data that describe different levels of society. The data offer is divided into three main groups: regional data, individual data and data on the political system.

Regional data describe regional or territorial units such as municipalities, counties, countries etc. Because such data are often counts (aggregates) of the individuals that are found within the limits of a defined territory, they are often referred to as aggregate data. A third term, which has particularly been used in connection with the analysis of voter attitudes, is ecological data.

Individual data is information on individuals obtained from questionnaires, interviews or public registers. NSD’s individual data archive contains a number of questionnaires on both national and international conditions. The surveys cover a broad range of topics, including living conditions, health, work, media use, elections, democracy and social values. In addition, NSD’s archives contain data from several registers, including national insurance-related matters and the GP scheme, and from several censuses.

NSD also has information databases on institutions. Data on institutions describes organisations, establishments, universities and university colleges.

NSD keeps archives of the political system. The archives contain data on Storting (the Norwegian parliament), the government and administration in addition to information on the political parties.

Access to data

Data from NSD can be ordered via an electronic form, letter or e-mail and submitted over the Internet, on disk or CD, depending on what types of data are required.

Software development
In addition to various data services for research, NSD also develops new software aimed at facilitating the retrieving and analysis of quantitative data.

2006 © Statistics Norway