Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences

The FORS - Swiss Competence Center for Social Science is a national research infrastructure, was established in 2008. It is funded by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, by contributions from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Lausanne. Purpose of the institution is the provision of services, research and the dissemination of research findings in the social sciences.

The activities of FORS include in particular the performing national and international interviews with social and political themes, documenting and providing a wide range of data sets for secondary analysis, the optimization of methods and procedures for survey research and the advice of researchers.

FORS integrated infrastructure and research projects such as the Swiss Household Panel ( SHP), the Swiss Electoral Studies ( Selects ), the Social Report and the Data and Research Information Service ( DARIS ).

In addition, FORS organized courses such as the annual "Swiss Summer School on Methods in the Social Sciences ", Monthly Research Methods Seminars (in collaboration with members of the Social Sciences at the University of Lausanne MISC and IMA), workshops at Swiss universities and colleges as well as international conferences. FORS is also a portal to data of official statistics - COMPASS - are available.