Linking data – New Leibniz infrastructure strengthens interdisciplinary research

Nov 4, 2026, 11:13:39 AM
Heike Hensel , Leibniz-Institut für ökologische Raumentwicklung e. V.

The “Geolinking Service SoRa” research data infrastructure helps to close a gap in the German research landscape. Many questions – such as those regarding social inequality or environmental justice – can only be answered through interdisciplinary analyses, such as linking social science and spatial science data: Does the proportion of green space in a residential neighbourhood affect health and well-being? Are people who live in single-family homes happier than residents of densely built-up urban neighbourhoods? How does transportation infrastructure - such as access to buses and trains – influence people’s mobility patterns? To answer such questions, we need, on the one hand, survey data on life satisfaction or people’s political attitudes, such as that collected by the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). On the other hand, geographic data that provides information about the characteristics of residential neighbourhoods and other spatial conditions is needed. Linking these different types of data from the social, economic, and spatial sciences has so far been a very laborious process. Technical, institutional and data protection challenges stand in the way: to protect the privacy of respondents, the addresses of surveyed households are not disclosed; their processing is only possible in specially secured environments provided by research data centres (FDZ) that meet the highest data protection standards. Added to this are heterogeneous data formats and interfaces, a lack of standardisation in data and processing procedures, and various data holders with differing responsibilities. Furthermore, the linking and analysis of survey and geodata require specialist knowledge – such as the use of geographic information systems – which only a few researchers in the social sciences possess. This is where the “Geolinking Service SoRa” comes in: the service supports its users at every stage of the process, from selecting suitable survey and geodata, through linking the datasets, to analysing the linked data. In doing so, it relieves researchers of virtually all the technical work involved in handling and linking data. SoRa currently offers access to SOEP survey data, census data and the geodata from the Monitor of Settlement and Open Space Development (IOER Monitor). The service also integrates official geodata from the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG). A user-friendly search function helps users select suitable datasets and methods, whilst an integrated service converts address lists into coordinates. To ensure that results remain traceable and reproducible, SoRa automatically documents which data, methods and settings were used for each linkage. Another advantage of the service is that, in order to test in advance whether the planned linking of data is relevant to one’s own research question, geodata and linking methods can be used in “Public Mode” from home or from one’s own research institution. Synthetic residential coordinates, modelled on the actual spatial distribution, are available for this purpose. It is only in “Private Mode” – within the technically secure environment of the FDZ SOEP in Berlin – that access to the SOEP’s actual residential coordinates is possible. The “Geolinking Service SoRa” was developed with funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG). It offers open-source software solutions and is based on the FAIR principles for best practice in scientific data management. These principles state that data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. SoRa is a long-term service that forms part of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). The three participating institutions – GESIS, IOER and SOEP/DIW Berlin – will jointly oversee its ongoing development. The Research Data Centre of the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER FDZ) is committed to intensify the integration and broader adoption of SoRa services for the spatial science community among others. In future, the services of other research data centres and data holders can and should be integrated.