HASSET is our subject thesaurus that has been developed by the UK Data Archive over more than 20 years. It allows you to retrieve data and related documentation accurately and can help you select the most relevant search terms for your area of interest.

HASSET – the Humanities and Social Science Electronic Thesaurus - displays the relationships between terms and so can help you broaden your search or make it more specific. Cross referencing to synonyms will suggest alternative terms as well as provide links to other conceptually related terms.

The thesaurus’ subject coverage reflects the subject content of the UK Data Service holdings focusing on the social sciences and humanities. Coverage is most comprehensive in the core subject areas of social science disciplines: politics, sociology, economics, education, law, crime, demography, health, employment, and, increasingly, technology and environment.

The thesaurus was initially based on the UNESCO Thesaurus (ISBN: 92-3-101469-2) and is continuously expanded and updated by the UK Data Archive.  As new terms appear in our studies, new terms will be found in the thesaurus.  The Archive has produced Help for users, explaining the background to HASSET and SKOS-HASSET, its RDF version.

HASSET may be used by other organisations, for example to index materials, provided it is for non-commercial purposes and appropriate acknowledgement is given.  A licence form allowing you to use or adapt HASSET in your own organisation can be requested by contacting the UK Data Service; please address your query to the Thesaurus Team.

HASSET is the basis for the multilingual European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST) which is currently translated into nine languages and is used to aid retrieval in the CESSDA Catalogue

In April 2011 the Archive embarked on a review of its controlled vocabulary tools, focusing on the Humanities and Social Science Electronic Thesaurus (HASSET) and the European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST). REVIEW STATEMENT