Functional Map of a European Socio-Economic Research Project

The RESPECT project involved the development of guidelines, or codes, in a number of separate areas: data protection, intellectual property rights, research ethics, professional issues and professional competencies.

Following consultation on these, an overall of code of practice was developed covering all these areas. This was accompanied by a user's guide to socio-economic research, designed for those who commission research, evaluate research proposals and review the results.

This part of the RESPECT project created a professional competency profile:

• to be a reference document for compiling the voluntary code of practice (see links between the occupational profile and the code)
• to be the basic material for the production of a user manual to European socio-economic research
• to contribute to the broader professional debate about the curriculum consequences of international research
• to contribute to the debate on creating quality standards and assessments of European socio-economic research.

Functional analysis was used to develop this profile, and to produce a functional map as a broad representation of the tasks required for a European socio-economic research project.