Editorial 1/2014

Celebrating 15 Years of FSD

Sami Borg

The Finnish Social Science Data Archive celebrated its 15 years of operation in May 2014. The data archive began its activities in the spring of 1999, and the young Minister of Education and Science, Olli-Pekka Heinonen, gave a speech in the opening ceremony. After the festivities, we quickly returned to work. It was a privilege to start building a completely new national service.

Many criteria can be used to assess our journey so far. The most important are the demand for our services and feedback from clients, both of which have been wonderfully encouraging. The basic tasks of the FSD have remained largely unchanged, but the services have expanded and become more versatile. Many articles in this bulletin cover these expanded services.

It has been our aim to always have the right customer service attitude. Work at the data archive proceeds in a good-humoured manner. During the FSD’s existence only three permanent employees have moved on. We had ten full-time employees when we began operations and now there are 15 of us. When fixed-term employees and people working on projects are included, we have currently around 20 full-time employees, meaning that the number of staff members has doubled since the beginning. This has partly been enabled by the research infrastructure funding granted by the Academy of Finland. It has allowed us to effectively develop our services during this decade.

kuvituskuva

We decided to dedicate the 15-year anniversary celebration to our current and former employees. Nearly 50 current and former staff members attended. In a group like that, one feels empowered. The group of individuals promoting the FSD’s aims is the best ever and ever-growing.

Sami Borg
Director