Within Department 2, Unit 21 provides support in statistical issues and evaluations, among other things, and acts as the link to the Research Data Centre (FDZ) of the RKI.

In addition, Unit 21 supports other RKI units in the design and implementation of data collection-related projects and in the preparation of studies with different requirement profiles. New technologies and meta-information are used and further developed in this context.

There are further links to Department 3 ‘Infectious Disease Epidemiology’, the ‘Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Public Health Research’ (ZKI-PH) and Department MFI ‘Method Development, Research Infrastructure and Information Technology’, as well as to the Federal Statistical Office and the Leibniz Institute for Social Sciences (GESIS).

Four central units are active within Unit 21:

• Survey Methods Team: Responsible for study designs, methodological research, communication, panel reporting, weighting and statistical recommendations, as well as guidelines for public relations and participant support.
• Data Collection Team: Responsible for defining and implementing survey methods, creating and programming survey instruments, conducting surveys, maintaining technical systems, transferring methodological findings, field organisation, training and quality assurance.
• Data curation team: Focuses on, among other things, the consolidation and management of survey data, preparation in accordance with standards, consistency and plausibility checks, provision of prepared data sets and documentation, and support for data users.
• Public Relations/Panelist Support Team: Responsible for target group-specific communication, creation of information materials, project-related marketing, and support and assistance for participants.