Although the ESS was always intended to be a time series, it has hitherto been funded on a round-by-round basis.

The central coordination and design has been funded through the European Commission’s Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes and the European Science Foundation. The national scientific funding bodies in each country cover the costs of fieldwork.

Further information about the specific funders for each country and each round can be found here.

The ESS is also among the first social science projects to receive funding to support its infrastructure and in 2005 was awarded Europe’s top annual science award, the Descartes prize.