Faculty of Social Sciences research infrastructure
Here you will find collected information about the research infrastructure within the Faculty of Social Sciences. Resources are very varied in nature, and there is no sharp definition of what constitutes infrastructure.
Films on research infrastructure
Old aerial photos - new gold mine for researchers
Digital infrastructure and databases
Children of Immigrants - Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries (CILS4EU)
A comparative and longitudinal survey in Sweden, England, Germany and the Netherlands (formerly called the Youth in Europe Study [YES]). The project has a broad approach and addresses issues of students’ well-being, networks and attitudes. The study is based on a nationally representative sample of 8th and 9th grade students. (The infrastructure is managed by SOFI)
More about the survey
Complab/Demscore
Complab is a datainfastructure run in collaboration between Stockholm University and Uppsala University. The Department of Political Science, together with SOFI, is involved in the international infrastructure Demscore through the module CompLab – Comparative Policy Laboratory. CompLab provides policy data across three different areas: migration, environment and social policy. CompLab is a founding member of Demscore, a digital infrastructure that makes data available from the largest databases in democracy, environment, migration, social policy, conflict and representation.
Generations and Gender Survey (GGS)
The Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) is a national survey with an associated context database that is part of an international survey programme. A Swedish GGS enables, among other things, new knowledge about decision-making processes concerning family formation and childbearing. In the Swedish survey, Statistics Sweden is the responsible data collector. Follow-ups of demographic outcomes during 2013-2016 have been made using register data. The GGS is also conducted in a large number of other European countries as part of the international Generations and Gender Programme (GGP). At Stockholm University, for example, the databases are used by demographers and sociologists.
More about the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS)
GRACE - Governing the Anthropocene (GRACE) Database
The (GRACE) Database provides information on national responses to environmental policy/environmental protection in 37 countries over the period 1970-2022. It is an extension of the data originally collected in the ENVIPOLCON (Environmental Governance in Europe: The impact of International Institutions and Trade on Policy Convergence) project.
Health Bank
The Swedish Health Record Research Bank (or “Health Bank” for short) contains about two million anonymised patient records from Karolinska University Hospital, 2006–2014.
More information on Health Bank
Historical Database of Sweden (HDS)
The database compiles historical monetary and financial statistics for Sweden from 1668, freely available. Some of the time series go back to the Middle Ages. It constructs time series that are consistent over time and applies today's definitions. The purpose is to facilitate long-term analyses of, for example, house prices, the relationship between money supply and inflation, and macroeconomic developments.
HUMINFRA
Huminfra is a Swedish national infrastructure supporting digital and experimental research in the Humanities by providing users with a single entry point for finding existing Swedish materials and research tools, and by developing national method courses
Level of Living Survey (LNU)/REWHARD
Level of Living Survey (Levnadsnivåundersökningen – LNU), is part of the national infastructure REWHARD. LNU is a recurring survey in which a nationally representative sample of Sweden's adult population is interviewed or answers questionnaires about their living conditions in a number of areas. The LNU survey was first implemented in 1968 and has since then been implemented another six times with intervals of approximately 10 years, the latest round in 2020-22. To a large extent, the same persons have been interviewed in the survey on repeated occasions. Together with the American Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is LNU the world's longest still ongoing longitudinal survey.
REWHARD is a national infrastructure, that aims to facilitate research on how working and living conditions affect each other as well as the health, sickness absence and well-being of individuals over the life course. REWHARD consists of the databases SLOSH, LNU, IMAS and STODS and is mainly funded by the Swedish Research Council, Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University.
NEAR
NEAR, The National E-infrastructure for Aging Research, facilitates the use of databases from major population longitudinal studies on ageing and health in Sweden.
SCIP (Social Citizenship Indicator Programme)/The Social Policy Indicators (SPIN)
The Social Citizenship Indicator Program (SCIP) is a database that describes the evolution of citizens' rights and obligations under five major social security programmes in 18 OECD countries between 1930 and 2005.
More information on the SCIP database can be found on the SPIN website, see below (More about SPIN).
The Social Policy Indicators (SPIN) database provides the basis for new comparative and longitudinal research on the causes and consequences of welfare states. SPIN provides comparative data on citizens' social rights and obligations. The database focuses on analyses of institutions and how they are manifested through social policy legislation. SCIP and SPIN are active partners of the Comparative Policy Laboratory (COMPLAB), which in turn is part of DEMSCORE.
Stockholm Birth Cohort Study – Born in Sweden in the 1950s
The Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study (SBC Multigen) was established in 2018/2019, as a result of a probability matching between the Stockholm Metropolitan Study (SMS) and RELINK53. All boys and girls who were born in 1953 and lived in the Stockholm metropolitan area in 1963 were offered to participate in a school survey (the Metropolitan Study). More than 15,000 individuals participated in the study. Today, the study contains anonymised life-course data for the first 56 years of the individuals’ lives.
Stockholm Life Course Project (SLCP)
The Stockholm Life-Course Project (SLCP), which is managed by the Department of Criminology, is a longitudinal study of crime. In total, the data material consists of just over 15,000 people. The SLCP is based on three interview and register studies of young people under the age of 20: the Clientele Study, the Skå Study and the Paragraph 12 Home Study. All studies included a group of offenders. Members of this group had experienced problems in the form of delinquency and other antisocial behaviour during their youth.
In 2011, data from the Multigenerational Register was added to the study. This enabled the participants in the three baseline studies to be linked to their parents, children, grandchildren, siblings and nieces and nephews, for whom new registry data were collected. This resulted in data from 15 390 new individuals.
More about the Stockholm Life Course Project (SLCP)
Swedish National Data Service
Swedish National Data Service (SND), a national infrastructure. The primary function is to support the accessibility, preservation, and reuse of research data and related materials.
The Swedish Twin Registry
The Swedish Twin Registry is a national infrastructure. It is the largest of its kind and has become an invaluable resource for medical research. The Registry was established in the 1960s and contains information about some 87 000 twin pairs for which zygosity is known, both mono- and dizygotic pairs.
Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS)
Researchers at SUDA, Stockholm University's demographic department, have been involved in designing the survey. The YAPS is based on a panel of young adults who responded to a postal survey in 1999, followed up in 2003 and 2009. Register data on marriage, childbearing, divorce and separation have been linked to survey responses on attitudes towards work, norms and family. The data includes about 3500 young people and has been collected by Statistics Sweden.
More about the Young Adult Panel Study (YAPS)
Read more here about demographic data
Laboratories
Gösta Ekman Laboratories
The laboratory is part of the Department of Psychology. The research focuses on how humans perceive the world around us using our senses of sight, hearing and smell. This includes studying the psychological effects of noise, how the sense of smell can be used to detect dementia, how blind people can learn to navigate using other senses, and how people with spider phobia can avoid strong emotional reactions.
More about Gösta Ekman's laboratories
Stockholm University Sleep Laboratory
In the sleep laboratory, which is part of the Department of Psychology, participants can sleep in isolation from factors such as bright light, noise, clocks, (mobile phones), and other things that can affect sleep. The laboratory is equipped to record and analyse polysomnography (EEG - electrical activity of the brain, EOG - eye movements and EMG - muscle tension), but it can also measure participants' heart rate, movements and behaviours (including with cameras), and has equipment to take samples to measure hormones, metabolism and immune function.
Cognitive tests can be performed in the laboratory, and there are also actigraphs and ambulatory EEG equipment to record activity and sleep in field studies.
More about the Sleep Laboratory
Stockholm University Brain Imaging Centre (SUBIC)
SUBIC is a multidisciplinary infrastructure dedicated to research on brain structure and function, as well as other fields benefiting from imaging micro structures
SUBIC’s infrastructure supports Swedish research with state of the art imaging technologies, including MRI, EEG, TMS, X-ray microscopy. SUBIC's equipment is valuable for fundamental and applied academic research within the humanities, social sciences, law and natural sciences.
Other infrastructure
Stockholm University Psychological Clinic (SUPK)
Stockholm University's Psychology Clinic aims to create a nationally leading environment for research on psychological treatment, diagnostics and professional didactics. The Department of Psychology will work towards this by providing a clinical environment for psychological research and method development, and by collaborating with other universities and organisations nationally and internationally in the area of interest. A prerequisite for this is the clinic, which has the task of offering training at a modern clinic with high quality in psychotherapeutic methodology, treatment evaluation, patient safety and research, and in collaboration with the surrounding community to offer the public psychological treatment.
Last updated: January 31, 2025
Source: The Office of Human Science