Depends what you study. If you're an economist you need access to data like compustat or other. If you're a political scientist in the US much of the data is av

Depends what you study. If you're an economist you need access to data like compustat or other. If you're a political scientist in the US much of the data is available but you also need to spend a while cleaning it (although there are great resources now too.) You're really talking about small scale interviews or qualitative work. That's an aspect of social science but it's not all of it.