The kick-off meeting for SEEDS was held in Lausanne, Switzerland on May 4-6, 2015. Fifteen people from seven consortium partner institutions were present, including Paul Jackson, managing director of CESSDA. The overall purpose of the meeting was to set the stage for the entire project, for the project partners to get to know one another, and to introduce and layout the various project stages, activities, roles, and requirements. The workshop included sessions on key concepts, principles, and best practices of data archiving and research data infrastructures. There were also presentations and discussions on the previous European FP7 project SERSCIDA, which was a model for SEEDS, and which aimed to help establish new social science data services in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.