This will take place in Mannheim between 14-16 December 2010. Please click here for further details and to apply.

***NEW - ESS ROUND 5 PARTICIPATION CONFIRMED*** 

So far, 26 countries have confirmed their participation in ESS Round 5. You can find out which countries these are here. Fieldwork for Round 5 will start in September 2010 and will include questions from the two rotating modules on Trust in the Police and Courts and Work, family and well-being. You can find out more about the background to these modules here.

***SUCCESSFUL QUESTION MODULE DESIGN TEAMS FOR ROUND 6***

The question module design teams for ESS Round 6 have now been selected by the Scientific Advisory Board.

The two successful topics are:

1. Personal and social well-being led by Felicia Huppert from the University of Cambridge, UK. This is a repeat module from Round 3 of the ESS. For more information about the proposed module click here.


2. Europeans' understandings and evaluations of democracy led by Hanspeter Kriesi from the University of Zurich. This is a new module for the ESS. For more information about the proposed module click here.

In 2005, the ESS was awarded the Descartes prize. Part of the prize money was used to develop and publish a book on nonresponse in cross-national surveys.

"Improving Survey Response: Lessons learned from the European Social Survey" by Ineke Stoop, Jaak Billiet, Achim Koch and Rory Fitzgerald from the Central Coordinating Team of the ESS has now been published by Wiley. It provides one of the first in depth examinations of survey nonresponse from a cross-national perspective.



Key features of improving survey response:

A detailed coverage of nonresponse issues including a unique examination of cross-national survey nonresponse processes and outcomes.
A discussion of the potential causes of nonresponse and practical strategies to combat it.
A detailed examination of the impact of nonresponse and of techniques for adjusting for it once it has occurred.
Examples of best practices and experiments drawn from 25 European countries.
Supplemented by the ESS websites, containing materials for the measurement and analysis of nonresponse bias rather than focusing on increasing the overall response rate.
It shows substantive researchers how nonresponse can impact on substantive outcomes.

For information about how to order a copy of the book, please click here.

ESS ROUND 4 DATA UPDATED

ESS Round 4: Data for 28 countries now available

We are pleased to announce that the third edition of data and documentation for ESS Round 4 was released on 24 March 2010. Edition 3.0 includes data from 7 additional countries - Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Latvia, Romania, Turkey and the Ukraine.

In addition, the parent's occupation files have been updated and the data from the interviewer's questionnaire have now been released.

The data are available from the Round 4 page on the ESS data archive website. To access this page click here.

You must register as a data user before you can download any ESS data. To register as a data user click here.

To provide funding agencies with essential information about the use of ESS data and to facilitate the exchange of information about the ESS, users of ESS data are required to register bibliographic citations of all forms of publications referring to data from the ESS in the ESS online bibliographic database.

The online bibliography is hosted by NSD, Norway and can be accessed here. The registration page to record details of any publications can be found here. Please check that your publication is not included in the bibliography before adding publication details - this will avoid duplicate records being produced.

The development of the Round 4 modules on Experiences and Expressions of Ageism and Welfare attitudes in a chnaging Europe has been fully documented using a question design template. This template is used by members of the ESS Central Coordinating Team and the Question Design Teams throughout the question design process. All of the design templates (for each module) as well as the final template with the questions asked in Round 4 can be found here.

A reception was held in Brussels in June 2009 to launch the ESS publication Exploring public attitudes, informing public policy.  The event also celebrated the progress made in securing member state support for future ESS operations as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC).  It is anticipated that the ESS will apply for ERIC status in 2010.

Commissioner Potočnik, guest of honour, spoke about the importance of good quality data to support the policy making process noting that ‘The European Social Survey gives us good quality comparable, Europe-wide, data from all 30 countries taking part. And equally importantly, information about how those answers change over time…. You have already come a long way. You have secured funding commitments from 19 countries, as well as from the European Science Foundation…you are a facility that is already providing results and having an impact”. He added that the upgrade of the social science projects on the ESFRI roadmap including the ESS was an ‘urgent priority’.

Other speakers were Robert Jan Smits, European Commission; Marc Heppener, European Science Foundation, Ian Diamond, UK Economic and Social Research Council; Max Kaase, Chair of the ESS Scientific Advisory Board and Roger Jowell, PI, ESS.   The event was held as part of the ESS Infrastructure Preparatory Phase Project, which is supported under Framework Programme 7 and was hosted jointly by the ESRC and the ESS.  Invited guests included key stakeholders from around Europe – representatives from Research Councils, Ministries, scientific institutions and from the Commission.

Round 5 Project Specification for Participating Countries now available

The Project Specification documents the requirements for each country participating in Round 5 of the ESS. The Specification is similar to that of Round 4 and the most important changes are listed in Appendix 4.

The Project Specification for Round 5 can be downloaded here.