CST Members – Call for Proposals: Nonresponse

Core Scientific Team: Nonresponse

• Notice Type: Call for CST Member
• Issue Date: 10 February 2025
• Closing Date and Time: 04 April 2025, 12pm (BST)
• Call Type: Call for Proposals
• Call Reference Number: Ref: 2025/002
• Call Title: Core Scientific Team: Nonresponse
• Contact Email: Proposals.ESSERIC@city.ac.uk

Details of Call

The ESS ERIC Director seeks to appoint an institution to provide nonresponse methodological expertise as one of the institutions of the Core Scientific Team Committee and lead associated activities in the Work Programme 2025 to 2029. 

Proposals are invited from leading academic or research institutions in the field of European survey research. 

The appointed institution will provide an expert to lead on development and execution of a work package on nonresponse. 

This expert will be a member of the ESS ERIC Director’s Core Scientific Team (CST).

The expert will report directly to the ESS ERIC Director for the effective conduct of the work package. 

Background

The European Social Survey is transitioning from its previous face-to-face interviewing approach to self-completion data collection. 

ESS Round 12 (2025-26) will be carried out by a mixed-mode approach in participating countries, with half of interviews delivered by face-to-face interviewing and half by self-completion data collection (web and paper). 

From Round 13 of the ESS (2027-2028), all participating countries will use a full self-completion approach (web and paper) for all data collection. 

The mode switch will have implications on survey (unit) nonresponse – an area that the ESS invested heavily in during the early years of the survey. 

With the move to a self-completion approach, it is the ideal time to re-establish a (unit) nonresponse work package for the ESS in the context of its new design. 

This will allow for an assessment of the types and levels of nonresponse error associated with the ESS’s self-completion approach – for example, the extent to which certain groups are underrepresented. 

Once this has been established, strategies should be developed and put into practice by ESS national teams to reduce the level of nonresponse error. 

The deadline for proposals is 12pm (BST) on Friday 4 April 2025.