Setting up a new research project

The ECONAU data management team will assist in the process of getting a project approved at Statistics Denmark. For researchers employed at the Department of Economics and Business Economics, the department will cover the project set-up cost.

You can submit your project proposal to Statistics Denmark via the ECONAU data management team. Please contact datamanager@econ.au.dk.

The following is required when setting up a new research project:

Project application
A guided version of the project application is available – in Danish and in English. Please fill in the template consistently in either Danish or English.
List of registers and variables
Please follow the instructions provided in the Excel file: DataSetsContainedInECONAU. For registers not available in ECONAU, please find the list of registers and variables here.
Internal notification
Researchers also need to register new research projects at Aarhus University via the internal notification. Aarhus University is the data controller (dataansvarlig). Please register the project here and attach confirmation of the notification (løbenummer) along with your project proposal
External data
If the research project involves data not provided by Statistics Denmark, researchers need to obtain the necessary permissions themselves. Please append these to the project proposal. Please find a guide on the various ways in which external data can be transferred to Statistics Denmark here. Please contact the data manager to coordinate the transfer.
How to approach AUs data security model in an ECONAU project
Researchers with ECONAU projects are obliged to follow AU's data security model. As many of the elements of the model are part of the ECONAU research setup, please read through the following commented version of AU's data security model: AU data security and ECONAU research projects
Exemption from information duty when using register data
When you do register-based research, you are exempted from the information duty. Collecting personal data is done indirectly in register-based research - It would require a disproportionate effort to fulfil the information duty. Read more about how AU processes personal data in research: Personal data in research at AU when we are the data controller

Project managers

Each data project must have a project manager who is employed at the Department of Economics and Business Economics. It is the responsibility of the project manager that the research carried out on the project is in accordance with the current Statistics Denmark project description and is GDPR-compliant.

Depending on the project, other relevant permissions may apply. It is also the responsibility of the project manager to make sure that the project is not taking up an unreasonable amount of space, and, for example, to clean up or delete old users’ folders. If a project manager leaves the Department of Economics and Business Economics, the project manager is responsible for appointing a new project manager and informing an ECONAU data manager about the change. Alternatively, the project manager must move the project to his/her new institution.

External funding for data

When you are preparing an application for external funding for your research projects, please keep in mind that our department would like you to help fund our valuable data infrastructure (project database, data managers, data projects etc.). This is how we ensure that we have sufficient means to continue to provide a high-quality data infrastructure. Under External funding, you will find templates for “External funding applications using the ECONAU database” (in the panel to the right). Please use these templates to apply for funding for ECONAU. If you receive a grant, please also remember to get your grant administrator to transfer the appropriate amount to ECONAU.