Background

The German Internet Panel (GIP) is a long-term study conducted by the University of Mannheim and collects data on individual attitudes and preferences that are relevant in political and economic decision-making processes.

The topics covered by the GIP are diverse and include attitudes towards political reforms, the welfare state, German and EU politics, health, social inequality, education, and employment, as well as key socio-demographic information. The questionnaire modules are developed by researchers in cooperation with the GIP team.

The GIP was first fielded in 2012 and has since been conducted bi-monthly. The GIP participants were recruited by means of a random probability sample of the general population of Germany and offline recruitment. More than 3,500 people from all over Germany regularly take part in the online surveys.

To ensure an accurate representation of the general population, the GIP applies and develops state-of-the-art scientific methods. As part of the Open Science movement, the GIP makes all survey data available to the scientific community as Scientific Use Files.

The GIP study was set up and directed from 2012 by Prof. Dr. Blom, Professor of Data Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, and was the central infrastructure project of the central infrastructure project of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 884 “Political Economy of Reforms” which was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2010 to 2022.

Since 2023, it has been based as an infrastructure project at the Mannheim University Library and is being conducted by a survey team under the academic direction of Prof. Dr. Richard Traunmüller.

Research questions from scientists at the University of Mannheim and external scientists can be integrated into the bimonthly GIP studies.