Maciej Melon and Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek from the QDA participated in the conference ‘Poland in European and World Research Infrastructures,’ organised by the Centre for Research on Families and Generations at the Warsaw School of Economics (WSE) and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The event took place at the WSE on January 16–17, 2025. On the second day of the conference, which focused on infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities, the QDA representatives presented the Social Data Repository.

The QDA has published a new dataset entitled ‘Paltry Pensions’ in the Context of the Sense of Social Justice and the Goals of Pension Policy. It contains qualitative data from a project focused on retirees receiving pensions lower than the minimum pension from the Polish Social Security Institution (ZUS) — so-called ‘paltry’ or ‘penny’ pensions. The project is currently being carried out at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and is funded by the National Science Center in Poland. The dataset includes transcriptions of individual interviews with pensioners and experts, as well as parliamentary documents and articles from selected news portals concerning pensions lower than the minimum pension. The authors of the dataset are Dr. Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek, Piotr Drygas, Ewa Potępa, Dr. Klaudia Wolniewicz-Słomka, and Dr. Marta Kołczyńska.

On December 18, an Oral History Seminar was held at IFiS PAN. Participants analyzed two interviews recorded with women born in 1935 in Gdańsk. These interviews are part of the “Gdańszczanie” (“Inhabitants of Gdańsk”) collection, which is deposited in the Gdańsk Oral History Archive (GAHM) at the Museum of Gdańsk.
The interviews were selected, and an introduction was provided by Dr. Andrzej Hoja—a historian, archivist, curator, and the creator and coordinator of GAHM. Dr. Hoja is also an expert at the Center for Historical Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin.

The Oral History Seminars are co-organized by the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the University of Warsaw, the Qualitative Data Archive at IFiS PAN, and the Polish Oral History Association. The initiative is under the patronage of the “Wrocławski Rocznik Historii Mówionej” („Wrocław Yearbook of Oral History)”. If you would like to participate in future meetings or receive more information, please contact us at: seminariumoralhistory@gmail.com.

A new dataset titled ‘Orientation Systems in Public Transportation and the Cultural Dimension of Uncertainty Avoidance – A Behavioral and Semiotic Analysis of Selected European Cities,’ authored by Dr. Kamil Olender of the University of Wroclaw, has been published in the QDA. The dataset contains materials produced under the ‘Miniatura’ grant of the National Science Center, Poland. The study evaluated orientation systems in public transportation in the context of the identity elements of the city and region. The theoretical background of the project was based on Geert Hofstede’s concept of cultural dimensions.

On November 29, 2024, Maciej Melon from the QDA team and Magdalena Bielinska from the Open Science Platform operating within the Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling at the UW conducted an online training on research data management and the use of the Social Data Repository (https://rds.icm.edu.pl/). The training was intended for employees of the University of Lodz Library and was divided into two parts: a discussion of the basics of research data management with a presentation of the repository, and instructions for depositing a sample dataset.

On November 27, during the Oral History Seminar, Ms. Monika Szewczyk, a PhD student at The Doctoral School in the Social Sciences at Jagiellonian University, presented an interview on participation in protests related to the tightening of abortion laws, conducted as part of a biographical method class taught by Prof. Grażyna Kubica.

The Oral History Seminars are co-organized by the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the University of Warsaw, the Qualitative Data Archive at IFiS PAN, and the Polish Oral History Association. The initiative is under the patronage of the “Wrocławski Rocznik Historii Mówionej (Wrocław Yearbook of Oral History)”. If you would like to participate in future meetings or receive more information, please contact us: seminariumoralhistory@gmail.com.

On October 23, during the Oral History Seminar, Ms. Karolina Domańska presented an interview from her research on the popularity of American basketball in Poland in the 1990s. She used this research in her master’s thesis, titled The Popularity of American Basketball as a Cultural Phenomenon in Poland during the Transition Period in the 1990s (The Case of the Southwestern Voivodeships), which she wrote under the supervision of Dr. Marta Kurkowska-Budzan, Professor at Jagiellonian University. The thesis was awarded twice.

The Oral History Seminars are co-organized by the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the University of Warsaw, the Qualitative Data Archive at IFiS PAN, and the Polish Oral History Association. The initiative is under the patronage of the “Wrocławski Rocznik Historii Mówionej (Wrocław Yearbook of Oral History)”. If you would like to participate in future meetings or receive more information, please contact us: seminariumoralhistory@gmail.com.

On September 25, 2024, the first Oral History Seminar of the 2024/2025 academic year took place. Participants analyzed two transcriptions of interviews conducted as part of the project titled “‘Paltry Pensions’ in the Context of the Sense of Social Justice and the Goals of Pension Policy. A Multidimensional Sociological Analysis.” This project, funded by the National Science Center, Poland (grant number 2021/41/B/HS6/04416), is currently underway at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, under the direction of Dr. Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek. During the seminar, the analysis of the interview content was accompanied by a discussion of methodological issues. The handling of personal data of research participants in relation to archiving audio recordings of sociological research was also addressed.

The Oral History Seminars are co-organized by the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the University of Warsaw, the Qualitative Data Archive at IFiS PAN, and the Polish Oral History Association. The initiative is under the patronage of the “Wrocławski Rocznik Historii Mówionej (Wrocław Yearbook of Oral History)”. If you would like to participate in future meetings or receive more information, please contact us: seminariumoralhistory@gmail.com.

A new dataset titled ‘Housing Tenure and Dwelling in Social Housing Associations – IDI Interviews with Residents of TBS Warszawa Północ Housing Stock’ has been published in the QDA. The dataset contains 10 transcripts of interviews conducted in the spring of 2024 in Warsaw by Ms. Klara Lewandowska as part of her bachelor’s thesis research at the University of Warsaw.

In May 2024, Dr. Michał Przeperski published the book  Dziki Wschód. Transformacja po polsku 1986-1993 [Wild East. Transformation in Polish 1986-1993] (Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers, Cracow 2024). Among other sources, the book uses interviews from the dataset ‘Narratives of political and economic transition, 1995’ – a collection of interviews conducted by Dr. Denise V. Powers, available at QDA.