Research Data Access Resources: ICPSR

What is ICPSR?

ICPSR is the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research and is the world's largest social science data archive.  

ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences. It hosts specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.

ICPSR is an international consortium of about 700 academic institutions and research organizations, provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community.  The University of Utah has an institutional membership to ICPSR. 

Keep in mind that the datasets archived at ICPSR are formatted for use with statistical software such as SPSS, SAS and Stata, etc.  Some datasets can be analyzed online through the Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) system.

Getting Started

Before you begin your search, you need to set up an online account through the ICPSR Website.  

Even if you are accessing the ICPSR site from on campus, you will still be asked to login using your personal account.  You are usually asked to login at the point of download.  A nice feature of the account is that it keeps track of past datasets you've downloaded.

To create an account, access the ICPSR Website from a computer on campus.  ICPSR will recognize you as a University of Utah affiliate and you will then have the ability to create your own MyData account.

Much of the content in this guide refers to the ICPSR Data Use Tutorial.

Madison Golden, ICPSR Designated Representative and Research Data Management Librarian

For assistance with identifying and downloading ICPSR datasets

Marriott Library, Faculty Center, 1705W (please call ahead for appointment) 
Phone: 801-213-1825

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Matthew Burbank, ICPSR Official Representative and Associate Professor, Political Science

For limited assistance with analyzing ICPSR data

OSH
Phone: 801-581-6313

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