The main task of the NEPS Development staff unit is to provide operational support to the overall management of NEPS in its tasks. The focus of the work is on the conceptual development of the NEPS as well as the cooperation with the NEPS network.

The NEPS department works continuously on systematic process and quality management in the sense of an interface. This begins with the bundling and systematisation of innovative ideas for the NEPS and its network, includes the sustainable implementation by accompanying the concrete development work at the item level and extends to the approval of the content of survey instruments for individual surveys.

The area of NEPS development is subdivided into two areas of responsibility:

• Conception and support of steering processes for the medium-term strategic and content-related orientation and further development of the NEPS survey programme, designs and methods.
• Conception and support of steering processes incl. quality management for the implementation of planning within the framework of item and instrument development of the NEPS surveys (also: instrument and data quality, IDQ).