MEDem in a Nutshell
What is medem about?
Monitoring Electoral Democracy (MEDem) is a distributed European research infrastructure that will enable better, more comprehensive, and highly innovative comparative democracy research on electoral democracies by bringing together and linking data sources on the functioning of democracies, and by building standards and instruments for data collection and analysis.
In this sense, MEDem will connect, coordinate, and support research on democracy in political communication, political science, and beyond and will elevate the analysis of European democracies to new levels of scientific distinction and public impact.
WhO is MEDem?
As a distributed research infrastructure, the dedicated MEDem Team is drawn from eight partner institutions, who have signed a Consortium Agreement that governs their collaboration and serves as the legal foundation for their joint activities until the establishment of MEDem-ERIC.
MEDem legal and financial framework
On 8 April 2025, MEDem has applied for the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap Update 2026 with political support from 15 European countries. Austria leads the initiative with support from Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Slovakia, and Switzerland.
After its official inclusion in the ESFRI Roadmap, MEDem will enter its Preparation Phase (2026-2028), focusing on the development of services provided by its Service Centers and laying the groundwork to establish itself as a European Research Infrastructure. The MEDem budget for this phase is estimated at around €8M and will be funded by Austria and the Consortium partners.
During its Implementation Phase (2029-2031), MEDem is expected to become a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) under European legal status and to be funded by its member states. Each member will pay a fee based on the country’s GDP and is entitled to a seat in MEDem’s General Assembly. Two countries have already officially committed to paying membership fee: Austria (host-country fee) and Germany. The MEDem budget for this phase is estimated at around €14M.
Including the €3M cost of the Design Phase (2022-2025), total MEDem investment between 2022 and 2031 is estimated at €25M.
What Tools & Services Will MEDem Provide?
As a European Research Infrastructure, MEDem aims to provide a platform for discovering and integrating diverse data collections and data types (e.g., survey data, text data, and country/institutional data) through pre- and post-harmonization. This will ensure large-scale, long-term interoperability across all types of democracy research data. MEDem will also offer a range of specialized services tailored to meet the needs of various stakeholders. Already making significant strides, MEDem is developing its infrastructure with the creation of prototypes. Overall, MEDem will provide researchers with a comprehensive toolbox needed to refine their research questions and select reliable measurement instruments.
The European infrastructure for unlocking the true potential of data-driven democracy research