ODISSEI Podcast

Tom Emery speaks with Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology, Computer Science, Political Science, and Public Policy at Duke University and co-founder of SICSS (the Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science). Nearly ten years on, Chris reflects on how SICSS grew from a single location to more than 50 worldwide, and the community that made it possible. He also explains why the part of the courses in which participants develop their own projects is the heart of the programme: a space where experimentation, and even failure, is part of learning. And with AI reshaping both education and the social sciences, Chris draws on the lessons of COVID-era adaptation to ask what it means to teach in the age of LLMs.Affiliations: Dr. Chris Bail, Professor of Sociology, Computer Science, Political Science, and Public Policy at Duke University; Co-founder of the Summer Institutes in Computational Social SciencesDr. Tom Emery - Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful links: https://sicss.io/apply#faqhttps://sicss.io/overviewhttps://github.com/compsocialscience/summer-institutehttps://sicss.io/tom

In this episode, Tom Emery speaks with Konrad Turek, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Tilburg University and a core team member of the Comparative Panel File (CPF). As the recipient of the first ODISSEI Open Science Award, Konrad reflects on how seeing science as a collective endeavour, rather than an individual pursuit, shaped the development of the CPF with a small group of collaborators. He also discusses how open-source harmonisation projects like the CPF enhance explanatory power by enabling meaningful comparisons across countries and survey studies.Affiliations: Dr. Konrad Turek, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Tilburg UniversityDr. Tom Emery - Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful Links:https://cpfdata.com/https://sociologicalscience.com/articles-v11-33-907/https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1673209/full

In this episode, Tom Emery is joined by Kasia Karpinska, Scientific Manager at ODISSEI, to talk about how researchers can get started with the ODISSEI infrastructure. Kasia shares practical insights on grant applications and using multiple ODISSEI facilities together. They also introduce the ODISSEI Early Career Board — a new initiative designed to support early-career researchers through training, development, and networking opportunities.Affiliations: Dr. Kasia Karpinska, Scientific Manager of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social ScienceDr. Tom Emery - Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful Links:https://odissei-data.nl/facility/microdata-access-grant/https://odissei-data.nl/facility/cbs-microdata-discount/https://odissei-data.nl/facility/liss-panel-access/https://odissei-data.nl/facility/odissei-soda-fellowship/https://odissei-data.nl/facility/grant-application-support/

In this episode, Tom Emery speaks with Adriënne Mendrik, CEO and Co-founder of Eyra, an open-source software services company specialising in solutions for scientific research. Adriënne shares her journey from computer science and medical imaging to building software that supports sustainable and transparent research practices. She also discusses Eyra’s work in benchmarking and data donation initiatives, the role of open source in research software, and how her team helps shape advancements in social science infrastructure.Affiliations:Adriënne Mendrik, CEO and Co-founder of EyraTom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful links: https://www.eyra.co/

In this episode, we talk with Kristina Thompson from Wageningen University about the intersection of historical data and public health research. She explains why the Netherlands has such rich data resources, how historical trends illuminate health and society even today, and how automation can help improve the records. Kristina also shares her experience working with Delpher, the digitised historical newspaper archive, as well as other historical archival collections.Affiliations:Kristina Thompson, Assistant Professor at the University of Wageningen. Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful links:https://www.delpher.nl/https://www.wur.nl/nl/personen/km-kristina-thompson

In this episode, we talk with Mercè Crosas, Director of Computational Social Sciences at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and President of CODATA, about how AI is shaping the future of social science infrastructure. She reflects on her path into computational social science, explains what research infrastructures do and why they matter, and discusses how AI is already improving data access, discovery, and analysis. Mercè also explores what “AI-ready” infrastructures look like, how tools like Dataverse may evolve, and what skills researchers will need in an AI-driven research landscape.Affiliations:Dr Mercè Crosas – Director of Computational Social Science and Humanities (CSSH) Lab at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC). She also serves on the CODATA board and co-founded Dataverse.Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful links:https://www.bsc.es/https://codata.org/https://dataverse.org/

In this episode, we talk with Flavio Hafner and Malte Luken from the eScience Center about how Research Software Engineering supports social science research. They discuss what RSEs do, how computational tools can transform projects, and how they help make research reproducible and sustainable. Flavio and Malte also share examples from real-world social science projects, explain the collaboration between RSEs and researchers, and explore the future opportunities for software-driven social research.Affiliations: Flavio Hafner – Research Software Engineer at the Netherlands eScience Center. He works at the intersection of applied statistics, machine learning and social sciencesMalte Lüken – Research Software Engineer at the Netherlands eScience Center. Malte is experienced in writing, evaluating and optimizing computational models in the domain of social sciences.Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful links: https://www.esciencecenter.nl/ 

In this episode, Tom Emery talks with Ricarda Braukmann from DANS about how data archiving supports open and trustworthy science. They discuss why repositories matter, how researchers can make their data reusable, and how tools like AI are changing the field. Ricarda also shares insights into CoreTrustSeal certification, the ODISSEI Portal, and how European collaborations like CESSDA help shape the future of data sharing.Affiliations: Ricarda Braukmann, PhD – Data Station Manager Social Sciences at DANS. Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful links: https://portal.odissei.nl/https://www.cessda.eu/https://www.coretrustseal.org/

In this episode of the ODISSEI podcast, we’re joined by Marcel Das to dive into the world of open probability panels through the LISS Panel. Marcel explains what a probability-based survey is, how panels differ from traditional surveys, and what makes LISS unique as an “open” panel.We’ll explore the types of studies carried out in LISS, how researchers can access the data, and how it connects with CBS microdata for more powerful analyses. Marcel also reflects on international collaborations, new approaches like data donation and online experiments, and the biggest challenges of running a panel of this scale.Affiliations:Marcel Das – Director of Centerdata since 2000. Before joining Centerdata, he worked as a senior researcher with CentER Applied Research, an institute for applied economic research affiliated with Tilburg University.Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful linkshttps://www.centerdata.nl/https://www.lissdata.nl/

In this episode, we unpack the basic concept of a Trusted Research Environment, what it is, why it matters, and how it can enable secure, high-quality research. We explore how ODISSEI is advancing TREs through the SANE Project, and how this work connects with key data sources such as LISS and CBS.Affiliations: Lucas van der Meer – CTO of ODISSEI.Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, Rotterdam.Useful links:https://odissei-data.nl/facility/secure-analysis-environment-sane/

In this episode of the ODISSEI podcast, we’re joined by Bella Struminskaya to dive into the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Bella explains what SHARE is, why it was created, and the vital role it plays in understanding the lives of older Europeans.We’ll explore the history of SHARE, what makes this study so valuable for researchers and policymakers, and the challenges it faces moving forward. We also discuss how ODISSEI supports SHARE, and how it connects to other data infrastructures like LISS, CBS microdata, and more.Affiliations: Bella Struminskaya – Associate Professor at the Department of Methodology & Statistics, Utrecht University. She is a country team lead for the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE ERIC)Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful links:https://share-eric.eu/

In this episode, Tom Emery is joined by Angelica Maineri to talk about data and FAIR principles. Here, we explore the core idea of FAIR Data: what it really means and how ODISSEI is working to build infrastructure that puts FAIR principles into practice.Affiliations: Angelica Maineri – Data Manager at ODISSEIDr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful linkshttps://odissei-data.nl/facility/odissei-fair-support/https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201618

In this episode, Tom Emery speaks with Liza Sivak about the role of benchmarking in demographic research and the challenges of working with fertility data. Liza presents the PreFer Benchmarking Challenge, an initiative to assess how well fertility outcomes in the Netherlands can currently be predicted, to improve our understanding of fertility.Affiliations Elizaveta Sivak is a sociologist and a computational social scientist. Currently, she is a PhD candidate at the University of Groningen, where she studies the predictability of fertility. She is co-organising a data challenge for predicting fertility outcomes in the Netherlands (PreFer).Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful linkshttps://stulp.gmw.rug.nl/prefer/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42001-024-00275-6

In this episode, Tom Emery is joined by Laura Boeschoten to explore the concept of Data Donation. They discuss what it entails, how it works, and the potential it has to shape the future of research and data sharing.Affiliations: Laura Boeschoten is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Methodology and Statistics at Utrecht University. She currently works on building a Digital Data Donation platform which researchers can use to conduct data donation studies. Her research focuses on the various methodological challenges that researchers face when performing data donation studies and on designing intuitive and simple data donation workflows for both researchers and participants.Dr. Tom Emery – Executive Director of ODISSEI, the Dutch National Infrastructure for Social Science; Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University, RotterdamUseful linkshttps://datadonation.eu/