FAQs

 What is DEPART?

DEPART is a research project at the University of Vienna funded by the European Research Council and led by Prof. Laurenz Ennser-Jedenastik. 

The DEPART project is about political elites. What career paths do they have and how do their biographies influence policy and voting behaviour? The project pays particular attention to the role of political parties for career paths. To this end, we collect, code and analyse large quantities of political parties in order to better understand the interrelationship between political trajectories and political decisions. 

 Why was I contacted for a survey?

The participants are selected because of their political activity. We contact people who currently hold an elected public office for a party and/or are active in a party. 

 How did you obtain my e-mail address?

The e-mail adresses were collected from publicly available sources. In most cases, these were the websites of public institutions (e.g. municipalities, local councils, parliaments) and party websites. The resulting e-mail addresses are stored and processed in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). They will only be used for the scientific purpose of the survey, will not be communicated to people outside the project, and will be deleted once the survey is over.

 Is it possible to complete the questionnaire by hand or by calling in?

Unfortunately, it is not possible to complete the survey by calling in, in person or with a paper questionnaire.

However, you can complete the questionnaire using any suitable device with an internet connection such as a tablet, mobile phone, iPad, laptop, or computer. 

 I am not the intended recipient of the e-mail. What can I do?

We have tried to collect e-mail addresses linked to specific individuals rather than generic addresses linked to an institution or office. However, in rare cases, it is possible that we have retrieved the incorrect address.

In case there has been a mistake, we would be glad if you could let us know. Please send an e-mail to depart2024@univie.ac.at.

 I do not want to participate in the survey. What can I do?

The survey invitation e-mail contains an opt-out link. After you click it, you will no longer receive any emails for that survey.

 Can my answers be traced back to me?

Our quantitative research produces exclusively results at the aggregate level. It is therefore not possible to draw conclusions about the individual response behaviour of survey participants from any studies that DEPART publishes. 

Moreover, raw survey data are only made available to the broader public for scientific use after they have been fully checked for anonymity and data protection compliance. They will be stored on a Dataverse server of the Austrian Social Science Data Archive (AUSSDA) and will therefore be subject to the European legal framework of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

It is only during data collection that the answers are not yet anonymised. The invitation links to the survey are personalised so that we know who has or has not yet participated. Once the data are published, all the identifying information is removed so that the answers cannot be traced back to respondents.