[1] The Social Research Informatics Center (Társadalomkutatási Intézet, TÁRKI) was established by the Consortium of different academic and research institutes in 1985. The Databank was set up within TÁRKI with the aim to create a service-providing center, that serves the establishment of the information basis of the Hungarian social research. In order to contribute to the improvement of empirical social research TÁRKI also offers consultancy service and conducts surveys. Since 1992 it has a special Survey Department. In 1998 the TÁRKI Incorporation was founded for conducting profit oriented opinion polls, while the TÁRKI Consortium continues the non-profit data archiving.
[2] At present, there are 9 member institutions of TÁRKI, which are the following:
[3] The Databank has been functioning since 15 years and its main task is to archive and disseminate data and survey documentation, and the acquisition of data from other research institutions as well. At present the Databank contains more than 450, mostly Hungarian related, empirical social data sets in SPSS format, suitable for secondary analysis. These data are mostly originated from nationwide representative sample surveys. The archived surveys are conducted by TÁRKI and by other Hungarian research institutes as well. In the Databank there are also some data sets, which are suitable for international comparison. The users of the Databank can choose from various kinds of topics, such as attitudes, family, social deviance, health care, life-styles, values, consumer patterns, occupations, mobility, ethnic and migrant groups, local governments, stratification, poverty, social policy, social relations, social strata, rural society, religion, elections etc.
[4] There are the following data access categories:
[5] The Databank also sells data. The price of the data set depends on whether it is simple or aggregate, on the date the survey was conducted and on the status of the purchaser. The current price list of the Databank can be viewed in the table 1:
| Simple dataset | Aggregate dataset | |
|---|---|---|
| Survey conducted 0-12 months before |
250 | 1000 |
| Survey conducted 13-48 months before |
166 | 666 |
| Survey conducted 49 months before |
84 | 333 |
| Discount category I - Foreign research institutes, Hungarian public corporations |
66% of the list price | |
| Discount category II - Hungarian non-member research institutions, Foreign students |
33% of the list price | |
| Discount category III - Member institutions of TÁRKI, Hungarian students, International research institutions according to data exchange agreement |
free | |
[6] The Databank operates different thematic databank sections. The aim of creating these thematic sections is to collect and organize those data sets which are relevant for the same topic. One of the thematic sections is the TÁRKI Historical Database, which was built jointly with the Hajnal Istvan Kör (HIK), at present it includes 23 economic and social-historical databases.
[7] The Hungarian Gender Databank was established in 2000. It sums up social science research projects concerning women and gender issues and thus makes data and publications, a register of researchers and web sites easily accessible.
[8] The Databank also publishes and distributes the CD-ROM version of the Hungarian Household Panel surveys conducted between 1992 and 1997.
[9] The Databank also joined the Luxembourg Income Study project and the European Household Panel Network of CEPS/INSTEAD in Luxembourg, and therefore it gives free access to LIS databases for Hungarian researchers. Additionally these project leading institutions offer scholarships for researchers interested in international income comparison.
[10] Since its establishment, TÁRKI has been laying emphasis on maintaining close relationship with the major significant social science data archives of the world. At present it is a member of three international data organizations: International Federation of Data Organizations (IFDO), CESSDA (Council of European Social Science Data Archives), Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). This membership, due to free exchange of data sets between the member institutions, gives the TÁRKI Databank an opportunity to make international databases available for Hungarian users.
[11] Since 1988 TÁRKI has been taking part in the International Social Survey Programme, as a result TÁRKI Databank is able to offer access to all related international data sets for Hungarian users. Further international data sets are the East European comparative surveys, which are conducted by the Central European Opinion Research Group (CEORG). CEORG is a research foundation consisting of TÁRKI, a Czech (Centrum pro výzkum veřejného mínění, CVVM), and a Polish research institution (Public Opinion Research Center (CBOS)). It was founded in 1999 and is situated in Brussels.
[12] A significant part of the revenues of the TÁRKI Databank comes from the support of the TÁRKI Inc. and scientific projects (see Figure 3).
[13] Since 2001 the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund has been one of the main supporters of the Databank. The membership fees of the TÁRKI member institutions and the data access fees altogether make up only 10% of the annual revenues. The total revenues for 2001 are about 58.000 EURO
[14] The Hungarian social researchers and students of higher education are the main users of the TÁRKI Databank (see figure 3).
[15] The TÁRKI Databank participates in international social science database projects such as the Consortium for Household Panel Studies for European Socio-economic Research (CHER) financed by the European Commission. This project lasts 3 years (2000-2002) and aims at harmonizing several national panel studies with the European Community Household Panel.
[16] TÁRKI’s thematic data bases the Historical Data Archive and the Women’s Data Archive – will be updated in the near future.
[17] Although the TÁRKIDatabank is a public archive it is not supported by the government. The funding of the Databank is one of the main problems.
26 April 2002
