Global partners

The ESS has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in place with four organisations in Australia (Social Research Centre, a subsidiary of Australian National University); Japan (Japanese General Social Surveys, Osaka University of Commerce); Korea (Survey Research Centre, Sungkyunkwan University); and South Africa (Human Sciences Research Council).

As well as sharing methodological knowledge and practises, all four projects have fielded questions first included in the ESS.

In early 2020, the Social Research Centre replicated the vast majority of questions included in ESS Round 9 (2018/19) were fielded on the probability-based panel, Life in Australia. The resulting dataset is harmonised with the main ESS dataset.

At the East Asian Social Survey Conference in early 2023, all four members (China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan) agreed to field our Round 12 (2025) wellbeing module in their next wave. The ESS Round 10 (2020-22) COVID-19 module has already been fielded by the Japanese General Social Surveys (JGSS 2021). JGSS COVID-19 data is available here.

A formal relationship with the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) began with the replication of ESS questions in 2014. SASAS 2014/15 included three rotating modules previously fielded by the ESS: trust in police and criminal courts (ESS Round 5), understandings and evaluations of democracy (Round 6) and social inequalities in health (Round 7).

SASAS 2017 replicated the ESS Round 8 climate change and energy module (analysis of some of this data is available here); SASAS 2020/21 included the ESS Round 10 democracy module; SASAS 2022/23 will include ESS Round 11 questions on gender; and SASAS 2024/25 will field the ESS Round 12 health inequalities module.