The EUROLAB at the GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne (formerly Central Archive for Empirical Social Research at the University of Cologne - ZA) is a European Data Laboratory for Comparative Social Research created in 1996 by Dr. h.c. Ekkehard Mochmann as access facility to the data in the ZA holdings from all fields of empirical social research.
It was first supported by the Training and Mobility of Researchers (TMR) – Large Scale Facility (LSF) programme and thereafter to support researchers who were given access within the Improving Human Potential (IHP) - Access to Research Infrastructures (ARI) programme of the European Community.

Since its establishment more than 250 researchers from over thirty countries all over the world have worked at the EUROLAB for more than 4.400 days altogether. It has received positive evaluations both at national and European level and is recognised as an important research infrastructure to support high level comparative research. In Spring 2007 the EUROLAB was institutionalised at GESIS and now offers its services to the scientific community on a permanent basis.

Click here to see EUROLAB supported projects and publications from 1996 until today and have a look at EUROLAB brochures.

Since the beginning of the current contract April 1st 2006, 56 researchers from 20 European countries and Israel have worked at the EUROLAB for more than 1.500 access days.

--> Call to apply for research visits at EUROLAB in 2010 open until June 15<--

Support can be provided to individual researchers and research groups. Successful candidates who want to access the facilities provided by GESIS will receive:

• access to the more than 5.000 data sets and data collections at GESIS
• access to training courses in advanced techniques of data analysis
• access to training in data management and archiving
• personal working place with PC including a comprehensive program library for statistical analyses with most recent software releases.
• access to related publications based on these data bases via information systems in the GESIS Library with about 20.000 volumes and more than 140 continuously held national and international social science journals
• financial support to cover travel costs, accommodation and a per diem
• financial support to cover child care costs for researchers who bring small children

Furthermore, visitors can access facilities at the University of Cologne such as libraries, the university restaurant (Mensa) and shopping facilities.

• For further information regarding application procedure see Access & application.