The CESSDA PPP, Preparatory Phase Project for a Major Upgrade of the Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) Research Infrastructure, is a major new award of 2.7 million euros aimed at developing the Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) research infrastructure (RI), and is a direct result of the CESSDA RI being identified by the ESFRI Roadmap as an existing pan-European RI recommended for a major upgrade. The aim of the project is to plan the future development of the CESSDA RI and focus on tackling and resolving a number of strategic, financial and legal issues in order to ensure that European social science and humanities (SSH) researchers have access to, and gain support for, the data resources they require to conduct research of the highest quality, irrespective of the location of either researcher or data within the European Research Area (ERA).

The research was led by Professor K. Schurer, Director of the UKDA, who is the Co-ordinator of the project. This project received an award from a Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) call specifically targeted at providing a preparatory phase for RIs recognized within the ESFRI Roadmap process. Duration: 2008-2010. Coordinator : UKDA, Partners: UK Data Archive, University of Essex-UK , Finnish Social Science Data Archive, University of Tampere, Greek Social Data Bank - National Centre for Social Research, Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences, Data Archive-(FORS) Switzerland, Social Studies Archive, Centre for Social Investigation-ARCES/CIS-Spain, TÁRKI Joint Research Centre-Hungary, Sociological Data Archive/ Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (SDA) -Czech Republic, Social Science Data Archive, University of Ljubljana-(ADP) Slovenia, Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) –Norway, Romanian Social Data Archive, University of Bucharest (RODA) –Romania, Data Archive for Social Sciences, University of Milan (ADPSS) Italy, German Social Science Infrastructure Services (GESIS) Germany, Danish Data Archives, Danish State Archives (DDA) –Denmark, Quetelet Network, National Centre for Scientific Research (RQ) France, Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) the Netherlands, Vienna Institute for Sociological Documentation and Methodology (Wisdom) Austria, Swedish National Data Service (SND) Sweden.