Firm data easily accessible to researchers via FIRMBACKBONE

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Image: Getty images/Nobi_Prizue

FIRMBACKBONE provides researchers with access to data on all companies in the Netherlands. Utrecht University and VU Amsterdam are working together on this unique infrastructure on a structural basis. And: the developments within FIRMBACKBONE are moving fast. For example, unique financial data have become available and one and a half years of recent new firm data have been added. In short: FIRMBACKBONE is here to stay.

FIRMBACKBONE was created because firm data are poorly available to researchers and faculties have to pay a lot for this limited supply. In addition, the providers, such as Thomson Reuters and Moody's, are based abroad, which means that scarce government resources flow to them. With the introduction of FIRMBACKBONE, that has now changed.

Researchers can use data from all firms and other organisations, based on the Trade Register of the Chamber of Commerce. This gives them a wider reach than other providers that only offer firm data from large companies. With other datasets linked to it, FIRMBACKBONE is an organic structure that continues to grow, and to which information is constantly being added.

Shielded environment and pseudonymisation

Thanks to a simple application procedure and secure digital environment, FIRMBACKBONE is useful for researchers on the one hand. On the other, the infrastructure also meets the requirements of data providers that the valuable data do not just end up on the street. For example, users analyse the data in a protected environment and the companies are pseudonymised. Data that contain sensitive personal data require more work, such as thorough review by an ethics committee and detailed data processing agreements. To prevent this, the entire process has been made GDPR-proof. 

Partners

Various partners work together within FIRMBACKBONE. The data partners include:
 

  • the Chamber of Commerce (KVK) for administrative and financial data, 

  • National Employment Information System (LISA) for employment data and 

  • the Foundation for Internet Domain Registration in the Netherlands (SIDN) provides website addresses of companies with which FIRMBACKBONE collects textual information. 

ODISSEI (Open Data Infrastructure for Social Science and Economic Innovations) is crucial for embedding and infrastructural cooperation within the Social Sciences and Humanities. Among other things, it ensures knowledge exchange between data providers and manages the meta-data portal where information about the datasets is recorded.

In addition, FIRMBACKBONE works closely with SURF (Samenwerkende Universitair RekenFaciliteiten). They develop and manage the secure analysis environment SANE (Secure ANalysis Environment). In time, DANS (Data Archiving and Networked Services) will be used to archive the research data for a long time. 

The Social Data Science (SoDa) team and the Tilburg Collaborative Center for Organizational Data Analytics (TiCCODA) are partners in the study.

More information

If you want to know more about FIRMBACKBONE, go to the website or contact us via firmbackbone@uu.nl.

Go to the website of FIRMBACKBONE