Relevant data on sensitive and politicised political processes might be difficult to obtain and is sometimes even purposely hidden from the public domain. Policy elite interviews constitute crucial sources of information in policy research. However, there are significant challenges associated with ‘researching up’ which sets elite interviews apart from other interview methods. Although there is a great deal of literature concerning interviews conducted via phone or audio-visual computer programs, the implications of conducting policy elite interviews online have received surprisingly little attention. This paper discusses how going online can mediate the main challenges associated with policy elite interviews. These challenges include barriers to gaining access, dealing with biased information, and problems concerning positionality. Based on a least likely case to access relevant data, this paper reflects on personal experience from 20 online interviews with European Commission representatives on policy responses to the 2015 migration crisis. The paper concludes that the online format facilitated unique insights into a highly controversial issue area.

有关敏感和政治化政治进程的相关数据可能很难获得，有时甚至故意隐藏在公共领域。政策精英访谈是政策研究的重要信息来源。然而，“研究”也存在重大挑战，这使得精英访谈有别于其他访谈方法。尽管有大量关于通过电话或视听计算机程序进行访谈的文献，但令人惊讶的是，在线进行政策精英访谈的影响却很少受到关注。本文讨论了在线如何解决与政策精英访谈相关的主要挑战。这些挑战包括获取信息的障碍、处理有偏见的信息以及与立场有关的问题。本文基于最不可能获取相关数据的案例，反思了对欧盟委员会代表就 2015 年移民危机政策应对进行的 20 次在线采访的个人经验。该论文的结论是，在线格式促进了对高度争议问题领域的独特见解。