• European Community Household Panel (ECHP)
• European Union Labour Force Survey (EU LFS)
• Community Innovation Survey (CIS)
• Adult Education Survey (AES)
• European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)
• Structure of Earnings Survey (SES)
• Farm Structure Survey (FES) - available soon

Data collection for these studies is done at the national level by the relevant National Statistical Institute and efforts are then made by Eurostat to harmonise the data employing standard concepts, definitions and classifications where possible.

The anonymised microdata are made available for scientific research purposes only.

Access to the data is via the Eurostat web pages: epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/microdata/introduction

The Eurostat pages provide detail on each of the surveys available, including a description of the study and data, links to publications based on the data and a PDF document describing the procedure for accessing the data (including costs):

• European Community Household Panel (ECHP)
• European Union Labour Force Survey (EU LFS)
• Community Innovation Survey (CIS)
• Adult Education Survey (AES)
• European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)
• Structure of Earnings Survey (SES)

For those working within the UK higher education sector, an excellent introduction to the data and tips on how best to access them can be found in Tanvi Desai's presentation (PPT) from the ESDS workshop on 'Britain in a European Context'.

Wathan, J. and Rafferty, A. (2008) 'Research Potential of Eurostat Micro-data', presented at Britain in a European Context, Manchester, November 2008: www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2008-11-07/wathanrafferty.ppt