In crisis situations and threat situations (epidemics, natural disasters, internal and external security), the results of social science research are essential in order to derive social consequences and the need for political action. This requires quality-controlled empirical data.

The purpose of this project is to develop an infrastructure, with which the vulnerability, preparedness, and resilience in times of crisis can be empirically investigated in more detail from a social science perspective. To this end, an online information platform will be set up, providing structured data sets and repositories from various disciplines as well as non-scientific contexts, which are useful for researching social crises.In addition to georeferenced survey data, researchers will then be able to find other threat and crisis-relevant information, such as environmental and climate data, health and epidemiological data, economic data, civil protection and emergency care data crime statistics or accident and insurance data besides georeferenced survey data. The platform includes various dimensions of crises, the individual entries are provided with metadata and can be searched using filters.

In addition, a collection of survey instruments on the topics of vulnerability, preparedness and resilience will be created, which can be used in the development of questionnaires for population surveys. This will enable data pooling and comparability of results across different surveys. Finally, building on this, a short module with questions relevant to threats and crises will be developed, which will be placed in one of the standard surveys of long-term social observations.

The project will be accompanied by a working group of the German Data Forum (RatSWD) and supported by a heterogenous group of experts from both academia and practice.

In Krisensituationen und Bedrohungslagen (Epidemien, Naturkatastrophen, innere und äußere Sicherheit) kommt den Ergebnissen sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschung eine zentrale Bedeutung zu, um gesellschaftliche Folgen und politische Handlungsbedarfe ableiten zu können. Voraussetzung dafür sind qualitätsgeprüfte empirische Daten.