About the laboratory

Many of the questions that will guide research in the social sciences in the coming decades would benefit from being subject to comparative analysis where the experiences of different countries are contrasted and compared. Improved contextual level data carry the potential to accommodate such new demands in research by providing in-depth information about macro level structures that are difficult to attain from analysing only individual level data.

Background

COMPLAB was established in 2017 as a collaboration between researchers based at Stockholm University and Uppsala University. The aim is to improve possibilities for comparative research in three policy areas of relevance for both ecological and social sustainability. A key assumption underpinning COMPLAB is that many of the major challenges in today’s society are interlinked. Increased migration may cause problems of welfare chauvinism in social policy, the introduction of new carbon taxes may increase the demand for redistribution of both income and wealth, climate change is projected to result in new migration flows, and so forth. In order to understand how countries deal with such diverse but interlinked challenges, it is necessary to shift focus in research from single to multiple policy domains. COMPLAB brings together three unique and cutting-edge data infrastructures on environmental, migration and social policy:

Governing the Anthropocene (GRACE)

The Migration Policy Database (MIGPOL)

The Social Policy Indicators Database (SPIN)

By bringing together these three major data infrastructures for policy research, COMPLAB constitutes a significant and important investment in academia that will improve the collection, coordination, quality management, conservation, visibility, and access to accurate and relevant policy data.