KODEM (Coordinated Online Panels for Research on Democracy and Governance in Norway) is a national research infrastructure funded by the Research Council of Norway. The infrastructure enables researchers to ask questions to four societal groups relevant to research on democracy and governance in Norway.
KODEM makes it possible for researchers throughout Norway to ask questions of up to four social groups that are relevant to research on democracy and governance in Norway.
In 2025, KODEM consists of three panels: The Norwegian Citizen Panel, The Norwegian Panel of Politicians and The Norwegian Panel of Public Administrators. The Norwegian Panel of Journalists is being established and will be active from 2026.
So far, respondents to the Citizen Panel have answered questions about Norwegian society and politics. The data have been used for research on political behaviour and democracy, political communication, climate and environment, migration, extremism and diversity, health, territorial democracy and reforms.
Data from all panels will be made available to everyone for use in research and teaching via the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (Sikt).
How can researchers use KODEM?
Using existing data
For now, this is particularly relevant for data collected through the Norwegian Citizen Panel (uib.no). In the code books, you can check if there is available data that is relevant to you and your project.
Data from the Norwegian Citizen Panel collected in 2013-2024 are available through Sikt's survey bank (surveybanken.sikt.no). Eventually, data from the other panels will also be available through Sikt.
Data that follows participants over time (time series/panel data) is not available at Sikt. If you want access to longitudinal data, text data or data from the latest round that is not available at Sikt, you can contact KODEM by e-mail to apply for access to data in SAFE, UiB's secure data management system.
Buy space for collecting data
Research projects can buy access to the data collection in The Norwegian Citizen Panel, The Norwegian Panel of Politicians, The Norwegian Panel of Public Administrators and The Norwegian Panel of Journalists, or a combination of these. An agreement can be entered into both before and after financing of the project is in place.
If you are applying for a project and want to use KODEM data if your application is approved, you can enter a letter of intent regarding the collection of data. If you have financing and want to buy access, you can enter a data collection agreement.
Projects that pay for data collection have priority in KODEM. Contact KODEM by e-mail to get prices and make an agreement about this.
The questions must be in Norwegian and put into separate templates.
Apply for free space for data collection
Twice a year, so-called "pre-projects" are announced. The call is aimed at researchers and research groups led from universities, research institutes or university colleges in Norway who want to establish a new project for which they do not yet have funding.
KODEM allows for applications that are limited to a maximum of three minutes with 1000-1500 respondents per sub-panel. Three minutes in one panel corresponds to about 9 ordinary survey questions. It is possible to apply to collect data in several panels at the same time.
All proposals will be evaluated by panel-specific scientific committees composed of professionals from the various consortium partners.
There will probably be two calls per year (spring and autumn), with a field period six months later. The application is submitted in a separate form. It is brief, but must include a scientific justification, a proposal for survey questions (in a separate template), a plan for project establishment and communication, a description of project members, and research ethics self-assessment.
The four panels in brief
Norwegian Citizen Panel (NMP)
Through the Norwegian Citizen Panel, questions have been asked of citizens in Norway since 2013. The Norwegian Citizen Panel is a research-driven survey about the opinions and attitudes of citizens in Norway towards Norwegian society and politics.
There are approximately 12,000 participants in the citizen panel. The participants are randomly drawn from the inhabitants of Norway and are invited about three times a year to express their opinion in the survey. Participants do not receive payment for participating, but in each round of the Norwegian Citizen Panel, a lottery is conducted where three people win a travel gift card.
Many questions in the citizen panel have been asked over time, and some of these have been trended. On KODEM's trend pages (medborgertrender.netlify.app) (in Norwegian) you will also find citizen notes, where you get an explanation and interpretation of certain questions, variables, or phenomena (in Norwegian only).
It is also possible to study individual variables in Sikt's Surveybank (surveybanken.sikt.no).
Read more about the Norwegian Citizen Panel on UiB's website (uib.no).
Norwegian Panel of Politicians (NPP)
In 2018, a politicians' panel was established to which all elected representatives in Norway at all political levels were invited. Over 6000 elected representatives have participated in the survey in total, and all politicians in Norway are welcome to participate.
The Norwegian Panel of Politicians is a research-driven survey of Norwegian politicians' opinions and attitudes. This includes, among other things, their experiences with the relationship with citizens, the cooperation with other levels of government, the various tasks that come with being a representative, and how they assess the usefulness of various forms of democratic innovations.
The Panel of Politicians aims to strengthen the dialogue between research, politics and society.
Read more about the Norwegian Panel of Politicians on UiB's website (uib.no).
Norwegian Panel of Public Administrators (NFP)
The Norwegian Panel of Public Administrators is a research-driven survey about the opinions and attitudes of public administration employees in Norway. The panel was established in the autumn of 2020.
So far, employees in ministries and directorates have been invited. The plan is to expand to employees at all administrative levels in Norway.
The panel will be used to respond to surveys that deal with issues that are important for society, public administration and democracy. This panel will be able to contribute knowledge about, among other things, ongoing reform processes, such as the municipal structure reform and the regional reform.
Read more about the Norwegian Panel of Public Administrators on UiB's website (uib.no).
Norwegian Panel of Journalists (NJP)
The Norwegian Panel of Journalists is being established with the national infrastructure KODEM. The panel is expected to be active from 2026. All journalists, editors and several other media employees in Norway are invited to participate in the panel.
The media have a special power to set the agenda and inform the population and constitute an important arena for debate. By following journalists and editors over time, the panel will gather information about how they prioritise, work and perceive key issues.
Read more about the Norwegian Panel of Journalists (uib.no).
Common to the panels
Data availability
Data collected will be made available for use in research and teaching via Sikt in the form of a limited dataset about 6 months after the researchers responsible for the question gained access to it.
For access to more complete datasets, you must apply for access via SAFE, UiB's secure data management system.
For access to data beyond those that are available via Sikt, you can contact KODEM by e-mail.
Ethics
In Norway, there is no formal requirement for approval from an independent ethics committee, but for publication in scientific journals, information about approval from so-called Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) is often required for publication. In KODEM, the panels' scientific committees function as IRBs. These boards assess the survey questions to ensure the protection of the rights and welfare of participants, with a particular focus on research ethics and panel care.
All personal information is treated confidentially. The answers will only be used for research and will be processed in accordance with national research ethics guidelines. The data is stored encrypted and secure in UiB's solution for secure processing of sensitive personal data in research, 'SAFE'. The panel is processed by data protection officers at UiB and Sikt and follows the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The KODEM panels include surveys with humans as participants and comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In accordance with this, we have carried out a Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA), which has been approved by the University of Bergen, and done in collaboration with Sikt.
Implementation and recruitment
The panels are used exclusively for research purposes. The infrastructure is open to all research environments and will ensure high quality data collection. Ideas2Evidence is responsible for the practical implementation of the survey, and is responsible for recruiting participants, as well as sending and receiving the surveys to the respondents.
Invitations to the panels vary at the time of initial recruitment. For the Norwegian Citizen Panel, invitations are sent by mail and SMS to a random sample of citizens in Norway.
For the Panel of Public Administrators and the Panel of Journalists, e-mails are sent to publicly available work e-mails and to entire units.
For the Panel of Politicians, invitations are sent by post and e-mail, to addresses taken from the municipal press and the municipality's, county's, Storting's or Sámi Parliament's websites.
About the consortium
KODEM is a national collaboration between the country's leading academic institutions. The consortium includes the largest universities in Norway: The University of Bergen (UiB), the University of Oslo (UiO), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the Arctic University of Norway (UiT), the University of Agder (UiA), the University of Stavanger (UiS) and OsloMet.
In addition, leading research institutions such as the Institute for Social Research (ISF), the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE) and Sikt are participating.
Together, these institutions build a common infrastructure that provides completely new opportunities to understand how democracy works in practice. The infrastructure is led by Elisabeth Ivarsflaten at UiB, with Tobias Bach at UiO as deputy chair.
Read more about KODEM (uib.no).
