Advanced Skills for Research Data Management and Open Science in Social Sciences

Agata Lambrechts is a scientific collaborator at the Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society at Università della Svizzera italiana, serving as the Summer School Manager. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of York, UK, with previous degrees in law, international politics and human rights, and international relations. Alongside her role at USI she an active researcher focused on higher and vocational education studies, affiliated with the Swiss Federal University for Vocational Education and Training.

Alexandra Stam is a senior researcher at FORS (Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences) since 2009, working within the Data Management and Archive Services (DMAS) unit. She is leading the Data Management Services (DMS) group, and is particularly interested in open research data and the promotion of good data management practices throughout the research life cycle. Trained as a geographer, her research interests are on new forms of migration, particularly student mobility, and marriage migration. She completed a PhD in 2011 on 'marriage migration and the geographies of love', combining both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Emilie Morgan de Paula was trained in sociology and communication sciences at the University of Fribourg. She currently works at the Swiss Center of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS) in the Data Management and Archive Services (DMAS) unit. Within FORS, she supports research data management and open sciences initiatives, and is editor of FORS guides on survey methods and data management.

Mario Gay has over 30 years of experience in IT development and management in higher education and research. He worked at the Swiss national supercomputing center (CSCS) and Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), where he managed IT services for 26 years and represented USI in national committees and working groups. Since January 2024, he has retired from full-time work at USI and he is pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Bath, conducting research at USI, and consulting on IT governance, data protection, and information security in higher education and research.

Meret Hildebrandt completed her studies in physics at the University of Konstanz and Heidelberg. She has extensive work experience in the field of data preservation and management across various domains, as well as functional software development within this field. At the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS), her primary focus lies in data archiving, specifically conducting quality checks on metadata, and carrying out the maintenance and administration of the FORS ReplicationService.

Pablo Diaz has a PhD in social sciences. After working on several international research projects on issues relating to the circulation of public policy models, he reoriented his career towards supporting researchers. Over the last ten years, he has developed solid expertise in the management of personal and sensitive data, particularly within the Foundation FORS, where he worked until 2023. He is now the Research Ethics Officer of the University of Lausanne, where he coordinates the Research Ethics Committee (CER-UNIL) and contributes to steer institutional strategy in this area.