The Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) is a long running project that aggregates both direct and constructed variables from various country’s panel surveys into one easy to access location. CNEF began as a joint project directed by Professor Richard Burkhauser of Cornell University and Professor Richard Hauser of the University of Frankfurt. Since then, the number of countries in CNEF has expanded dramatically. That expansion occurred with the substantial and continuing contributions of effort, funding, and support from Principal Investigators and researchers at every CNEF member institution. Currently, Professor Dean Lillard of The Ohio State University is the Principal Investigator of the CNEF project.
Access to CNEF data is done through the ‘CNEF Investigator’ platform, which is a state of the art platform that hosts the data from these panel surveys under stringent safety protocols, discussed below, as well as an easily accessible format for both new and experienced users alike to access the data. In short, the Investigator platform allows for the selection of any and all desired data points from all of the available participating countries to be viewed and downloaded by users who have proper access to do such. For a further in depth explanation of how to operate Investigator, please check out the link below.
Needless to say, the Cross-National Equivalent File has been a decade’s long project that has tied in countless hours of work from our partners across the globe. Without their dedication to helping us maintain, expand, and further develop our project, we would not be where we are today. If you would like to help contribute to the continued success and development of the CNEF Project, please check out the link below in order to donate to the CNEF Project Fund.
The CNEF Investigator platform is accessed via Ohio State’s Center for Human Resources Research (CHRR) platform, which maintains an enterprise security system across all platforms compliant with NIST 800-53 (Rev 4). Based on a risk management framework, the CHRR’s security program addresses security control selections based on a FIPS 199 worst-case impact analysis design. Due to the nature of the data being hosted in addition to how it is transmitted, further safety protocol details regarding FIPS, NIST, and HIPAA may be found in a full document linked linked below.