Description of the RI

Function of the TÁRKI Data Archive:
long-term preservation of digital research datasets from domestic and international studies; keeping pace with technological change and participation in the development of data archiving standards; providing access to data collections of empirical studies for users communities; facilitating effective data use by providing access to our own and to our partners' collections.

Activities and Services

Operated by the Tárki Foundation, the Data Archive provides free access to archived data on social sciences for national and international research communities. We strive to be up-to-date on new data archiving technologies and we moreover aim to enhance cost-effective social research by enabling secondary analyses, to develop the Hungarian research infrastructure, and to support researchers by our databank services.

Within its public interest activities, the Tárki Foundation provides free access to the databases in the Tárki Data Archive for Hungarian university students and professors and research institutions. Due to its countywide network, the Data Archive has strong connections with social science faculties in Budapest and in the countryside. Therefore, the databases help educational and research institutions all over the country.

The Data Archive collects and stores databases on empirical social science researches. Most of the data result from surveys but other type of data, such as historical statistics or census data can also be found in it. They are stored digitally, in SPSS format, but they can be requested in other formats as well. Data that contain personal information are anonymized.

The Tárki Data Archive acquires databases through international research and data exchange programs. It is a member of diverse database organizations (as the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, ICPSR). These international data are accessible to the Hungarian users through our Data Archive. Moreover, numerous Hungarian data of international researches (as the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP); the European Social Survey (ESS)) are accessible in it as well and we offer help to access various international databanks.