The volume presents an updated overview of the background ideas of the NEPS and its conceptional framework. It informs about the longitudinal structure of the multicohort sequence design and discusses its key methodological challenges as well as data protection issues. It also describes the organizational structure of the consortium of leading educational scientists and research institutions who have not only jointly developed the basic design but are continuously further adjusting it. Finally, it provides background information for users who want to utilize NEPS Scientific Use Files for their research projects. The volume is a revised edition of the ZfE Special Issue on the NEPS which appeared in 2011. 

Professor Dr. Dr. h. c. Hans-Peter Blossfeld holds the Chair of Sociology I at the University of Bamberg and was the first Principal Investigator of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS).

Professor (em.) Dr. Hans-Günther Roßbach held the Chair for Early Childhood Education at the University of Bamberg and was the second principal investigator of the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) and the founding director of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi).

The National Educational Panel Study: need, main features, and research potential.- Education as a lifelong process.- Sampling Designs of the National Educational Panel Study: Setup and Panel Development.- Development of competencies across the life span.- Education processes in life-course-specific learning environments.- Social inequality and educational decisions in the life course.- The education of migrants and their children across the life course.- Educational returns over the life course.- Measuring motivational concepts and personality aspects in National Educational Panel Study.- Competence Assessment: Create Comparability to Standardized Competence Assessment using Log-Data and a Reference Sample.- From birth to early child care within the National Educational Panel Study.- Kindergarten and elementary school - Starting Cohort 2 of the German National Educational Panel Study.- Transition and development from lower secondary to upper secondary school.- Upper secondary education in academic school tracks and the transition from school to post secondary education and the job market.- Vocational education and training and transitions into the labor market.- Higher education and the transition to work.- Adult education and lifelong learning.- Data protection issues in the National Educational Panel Study.- The Research Data Center: making National Educational Panel Study data available for research.