In its statement, the Senate appraises the development of the Leibniz Institute since the last evaluation as positive. It states that the central service, the reference database PSYNDEX, is used intensively. As recommended, ZPID has expanded its own research and development work in recent years and thus created important foundations for the improvement of its digital services.
The new director, who has been in office since July 2017, has presented extensive, very well-founded plans for the further development of ZPID as reaction to the considerable increase in demand for digital services in the field of psychology in recent years. The background is, above all, the strong effort within the discipline towards Open Science. Sustainable and quality-assured access to the basic data of research is essential for the replicability of research results.
"We are pleased with the recognition of the results achieved since the last evaluation and the strong and unreserved support for our strategic planning," says ZPID Director Prof. Michael Bosnjak.
ZPID is working on becoming a universal provider of research-based support services for psychology and related disciplines. ZPID derives the needs of users from an ideal research cycle. While products for information search, archiving and publication are already available, services for study planning, data collection and data analysis are still missing. "We want to close this gap in the future," says Bosnjak.
The Senate's statement on ZPID is available as a download (only in German).
Background:
Every Leibniz institution is evaluated externally on a regular basis, commonly on a seven-year cycle. Internationally recognised experts, who are informed by written documents and during an evaluation visit, audit the services and structures of each institution. The results of the evaluation are recorded in an evaluation report, which the evaluated institute can comment on. On this basis, the Senate of the Leibniz Association adopts a science policy statement, which usually contains recommendations for further funding of the Leibniz Institute. This Senate statement is used by the Joint Science Conference (Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz – GWK) to review the funding requirements.