The database offers an overview over the historic development of the European Commission from the start of the first Hallstein-Commission in 1958 up until the start of the von der Leyen II Commission in 2024/5 (last updated: 01.2025). The creation of the database was part of a multi-annual project called "Position Formation in the EU-Commission" (PEU) at the Wissenschaftszentrum für Sozialforschung Berlin (WZB). Since then, PEU is situated at the Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) and gets updated regularly. All further information can be found here.

The database offers different perspectives on the European Commission:

• an insight in the personal backgrounds of commissioners and director generals (i.e. party affiliations, former positions/jobs, nationality, gender, further career) ("Persons Data")
• information on the ressorts (responsibilities for directorate generals) of commissioners and director generals as well as their in office period and respective affiliation to Commissions ("Persons Positions")
• data on administrative structure and size of directorate generals ("DG Data")
• an overview on the change and development of ressort names and responsibilities of the Commissions over time ("DG Organizational Evolution"

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Here is a selection of scientific papers that utilized the database:

• Hartlapp, M., Müller, H. & Tömmel, I. (2021). "Gender Equality and the European Commission". In G. Abels et al. (eds), Routledge Handbook to Gender and EU Politics. Routledge.
• Ege, J. (2018). "Learning from the Commission Case: The Comparative Study of Management Change in International Public Administrations." Public Administration. Zum Artikel
• Rauh, C. (2018) "An agenda-setter in decline? Legislative activity of the European Commission 1985-2016." Annual Conference of the European Political Science Association (EPSA) 2018, Vienna. Zum Artikel
• Graziano, P.R. & Hartlapp, M. (2015) "La fin de l’Europe sociale ? Évaluation du rôle des changements politiques et organisationnels au sein du système politique de l’Union européenne." Revue française des affaires sociales (3): 89–114. Zum Artikel
• Hartlapp, M. (2015) "Politicization of the European Commission. When, how and with what impact?" in M.W. Bauer and J. Trondal (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of the European Administrative System, Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 145–60. Zum Artikel
• Hartlapp, M. & Lorenz, Y. (2015) "Die Europäische Kommission – ein (partei)politischer Akteur?" Leviathan (1): 64–87. Zur Ausgabe
• Hartlapp, M., Metz, J. & Rauh, C. (2014) "Which policy for Europe? : Power and conflict inside the European Commission." Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zum Artikel