10th International German Socio- Economic Panel User Conference 2012 to be held in Berlin on June 28–29, 2012

The 10th International German Socio-Economic Panel User Conference (SOEP2012) will be held in Berlin on June 28–29, 2012.

In 1993, Richard V. Burkhauser and Gert G. Wagner launched the first in a series of bi-annual international SOEP conferences. They started on a very small scale and have grown over the last 20 years to become a major success in terms of the quality of papers, the number of submissions, and the level of participation. Today, SOEP User Conferences bring together respected scholars from around the world. SOEP currently has over 2,000 users in more than 44 countries and the user community is still growing. The SOEP2012 will mark the tenth anniversary of the International German Socio-Economic Panel User Conference.

The event provides SOEP users an opportunity to present and discuss their work with fellow researchers who are familiar with the SOEP data. Scholars from all disciplines (economics, demography, geography, political sciences, public health, psychology, sociology, and others) who use the SOEP or the SOEP component of the Cross- National Equivalent Files (CNEF) are invited to submit an abstract. We especially encourage sub- missions using the longitudinal features of SOEP, as well as those dealing with survey methodology or cross-national comparative analysis.

Venue
The SOEP2012 will begin on June 28, 2012 at DIW Berlin and the Hertie School of Governance, both located in the building Q 110 on Friedrichstrasse. The conference will continue on June 29 at the headquarters of Leibniz Association (WGL), where the closing session with the award ceremony, followed by a farewell dinner will also take place.

Keynote speakers
We are happy to announce as keynote speakers:
Shelly Lundberg, Professor of Economics at the University of Washington and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bergen, Norway.

Janet Gornick, Director of the Luxembourg In- come Study (LIS), and Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Scientific committee
Jürgen Schupp and C. Katharina Spieß form the core scientific committee of the conference. Former SOEP Research Associate Nicolas Ziebarth, who has recently accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University, will join the Scientific Committee in 2012 as a young scholar representing the longstanding relationship between SOEP and Cornell. We are pleased that Janet Gor- nick has also agreed to join the scientific committee.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: February 15, 2012
Please submit electronic versions of abstracts (up to 300 words) to soep2012@diw.de no later than February 15, 2012. Notification as to whether pa- pers have been accepted will be given by April 6, 2012.

Proceedings
Shorter versions of selected conference papers will be published in the conference proceedings (Journal of Applied Social Science Studies 2013 [Schmollers Jahrbuch]) with the understanding that a full version of the paper may be submitted to another professional journal.

Award for best presentations
The Society of Friends of DIW Berlin will honor the best three papers and the best poster presented at the conference. The SOEP2012 scientific committee will act as a jury and will present the award at the end of the conference.

Financial support
We ask attendees to pay their own travel expenses. If this is not possible, partial reimbursement may be provided to presenters (one grant per paper) at the following rates, depending on which country they are traveling from: up to €125 (Germany), up to €500 (other countries in Europe), up to €750 (overseas).

Local organizers
Jürgen Schupp and C. Katharina Spieß
Christine Kurka (conference management)

If you have any further questions concerning the submissions of abstracts, please contact the local organizers at: soep2012@diw.de.