SoLic - Social license to operate for aquaculture

This dataset is from the SoLic project, which was conducted from 2019 to 2022. SoLic - Social licenses in aquaculture - has investigated social sustainability, operationalized as social license to operate, and contributed with knowledge that enhances Norway’s role as a producer and exporter of seafood products. SoLic has investigated the determinants, mechanisms, and consequences for the social license for the aquaculture industry. Social license is understood as the expectations and requirements that apply to a sector and how the public perceives the fulfilment of these expectations. The importance of a social license lies in the necessity of good collaboration and interaction between industry and society. The SoLic project has contributed to putting the concept of social license and its associated theoretical foundation on the research agenda for aquaculture in Norway. The project has also conducted the first international comparative study of social license (Norway, Tasmania (Australia), and Iceland).

The surveys were conducted between April and September 2020 in Norway, Tasmania, and Iceland. A Norwegian survey company (Norfakta) administered the survey in collaboration with survey companies in Tasmania (Myriad Research) and Iceland (Gallup Island).

The survey aimed to explore the determinants and mechanisms behind the level of social license for the aquaculture industry. Drawing upon relevant academic literature on social license, our objective was to gather data on attitudes towards the industry and expand our understanding of the factors influencing its social license to operate. We also adapted previous survey designs measuring public attitudes to suit the context of aquaculture in the regions data were collected for.

The data collected pertains to both macro and micro levels, encompassing perceptions of the industry at both the national and local level community levels. Key concepts covered in the survey include transparency, visibility, and credibility, as well as the industry’s contributions and benefits to local communities and the broader state level. Furthermore, it examines the perceptions of the industry’s willingness to meet the expectations and interests of authorities and society.

The dataset comprises responses from a total of 2085 respondents, with 1183 participants from Norway, 406 from Tasmania (Australia), and the remaining 496 from Iceland. All respondents were presented with questions in their respective native language, namely Norwegian, English and Icelandic.

There are 3 supplementary files associated with this data:
1) Overview of survey questions and answer options (Survey.doc): The survey encompassed 28 questions related to the aquaculture industry, along with demographics, respondents’ knowledge of industry, trust in governance system, and environmental concerns. Some demographic variables were sourced from the existing panel data, while others were provided to respondents for their input.
2) The raw survey data in .csv file format (Dataset Solic_2085 respondents.csv): The survey data file contains 71 variables and data from each of the 2085 respondents. Blank entries in the dataset indicate either a lack of response from the respondents or that specific questions were not applicable to certain respondents (questions exclusively posed to respondents in one country).
3) The codebook in Word format (Codebook.doc): The codebook provides explanations and details regarding all variables included in the survey data file. It includes coding information for each survey question, response options provided in the raw data, and further clarifies the purpose and origin of variables computed by the research group (e.g., variable on aquaculture municipality) or the survey company (e.g., weight variables for data from Norway and Iceland). When used in conjunction with the raw data, this codebook serves as a valuable guide for navigating the dataset.

The data, as well as parts of the results from the data analyses, are further described in Olsen et al. (2023) (doi https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2023.739632), and in an upcoming scientific article in Data in Brief.

Additional info:
For Australia, only citizens of Tasmania was included in the survey, due to survey related to salmon aquaculture. 

Survey questions concerning attitudes towards the aquaculture industry were mainly asked using a five-point Likert scale (all moving from “1” negative to “5” positive) with the additional option of answering “I don’t know”/”I don’t want to answer”. The ends of each scale were labeled (“1 - Not a lot”, “5 - A lot”) but “2”, “3” and “4” had no labels.

There were variations in the available response options for “I don’t know/I don’t want to answer/uncertain”. Specifically, Norwegian respondents had the option of selecting “I don’t know”, while Icelandic participants could choose between “I don’t know” and “I don’t want to answer”, or even opt to provide no response. However, respondents from Tasmania were not offered the “I don’t know” option for all questions. During the analysis process, all instances of “I don’t know” options are treated as missing data.

Respondents postcodes and comments are exluded from the dataset to further secure full anonymity.