Establishment of an online access panel at DeZIM (DeZIM.panel)

An online access panel makes it possible to survey the same individuals repeatedly online, allowing both the observation of current attitudes and longer-term changes. The project “Establishing an Online Access Panel at DeZIM (DeZIM.panel)” is tasked with designing, building, and transitioning such a panel infrastructure into regular operation at DeZIM. At its core is a nationwide panel sample including individuals with and without a migration background, who are surveyed multiple times per year on various aspects of social life.

Panel recruitment is based on a preceding large-scale offline survey of the residential population in Germany. On this basis, an online panel has been established since 2021/2022 with more than 9,000 initially recruited individuals and a targeted oversampling of specific groups with a migration background (e.g., individuals from Turkey, other predominantly Muslim countries of origin, former contract worker states, and (late) resettlers). During the project period, key panel processes—recruitment, weighting, fieldwork management, and questionnaire design—are established and institutionalized.

Substantively, the DeZIM.panel includes both recurring core modules (e.g., politics, attitudes, values, health, work, education) and flexible additional modules that can be proposed by DeZIM researchers, the DeZIM research community, and the BMFSFJ. This allows the panel to respond quickly to current developments—such as new legislation, social conflicts, or international crises—while also enabling longitudinal analyses in migration and integration research.

Although established panel studies exist in Germany, multi-wave online access panels with a specific focus on migration and integration and with strong oversampling of individuals with a migration background are still rare. Existing panels are often limited to annual surveys and can only capture short-term events to a limited extent. The DeZIM.panel fills this gap by creating a panel that runs several times a year, combining rapid responsiveness with the ability to conduct detailed subgroup analyses.

Moreover, there has previously been a lack of infrastructure that can be used simultaneously by researchers from different disciplines and by the BMFSFJ for both recurring and ad hoc surveys. The establishment of the DeZIM.panel creates such a shared data foundation, enabling cumulative research and evidence-based policy advice.

• Infrastructure Goal: Establishment of a permanently usable online access panel that regularly provides data on social life in Germany, with a particular focus on migration and integration.
• Methodological Goal: Development, testing, and documentation of a recruitment design that reliably represents both the majority population and smaller migrant groups, as well as addressing specific methodological challenges inherent in panel designs.
• Use & Policy Advice: Establishment of processes through which DeZIM researchers and the BMFSFJ can regularly submit survey modules and use the panel data for research and evidence-based policy advice.

• Recruitment Study: In 2021, a large-scale population survey was conducted with more than 9,000 participants, including targeted oversamples of specific migrant groups. Participants were asked whether they would be willing to take part in regular online surveys in the future.
• Panel Setup: Starting in late 2021/early 2022, regular panel surveys were launched with multiple waves per year; implementation of core and additional modules, fieldwork management, panel administration, and weighting procedures.
• Supplementary Sample: In 2023, an additional sample of individuals aged 70 and older was integrated to better represent older cohorts and expand analytical potential.
• Data Processing & Access: Preparation of the data as Scientific Use Files (SUF) in long format via the DeZIM Research Data Center (DeZIM.fdz), with continuous expansion through additional waves.

During the project period, the DeZIM.panel was successfully established as an online access panel: by the end of 2022, one recruitment wave and four panel waves had already been completed, each with around 3,500 respondents, most of whom participated in multiple waves. The dataset now includes responses from the recruitment study, a supplementary sample, numerous regular waves, and rapid-response surveys.

The scientific article “DeZIM.panel – Data for Germany’s Post-Migrant Society” provides a detailed description of the panel design and its integration into the German survey landscape. The data are already being used by researchers to analyze integration, discrimination, attitudes, and social participation, and are available as Scientific Use Files via the DeZIM Research Data Center.

Dollmann, J.; Mayer, S. J.; Lietz, A.; Siegel, M.; Köhler, J. (2023): *DeZIM.panel – Data for Germany’s Post-Migrant Society*. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 243(1), 93–108.