Funding

SUSTAIN 2 will explore a potential partnership with the European Values Study (EVS), to consider whether EVS questions could be included in ESS data collection. This will include the development of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the ESS and EVS. Work is already underway on comparing questionnaire items included in both surveys, and if any EVS items could potentially be fielded in the ESS. Possible formal and informal collaborations with other large-scale or cross-national surveys will be explored, and a strategy developed for closer working in future.

Three Impact Showcase Workshops – where ESS ERIC member countries present examples of successful pathways to impact using ESS data – will be held. These events will be supported by the publication of a report to mark the 20th anniversary of the ESS, highlighting a selection of academic findings from analysis of 10 rounds of data collection. Technopolis Group (UK) will also update country reports, non-academic case study examples, user data and bibliometric analysis of published articles initially included in the Impact Study report published as part of the SUSTAIN project in 2017.

As part of ESS ERIC’s ambition to maintain and increase the number of participating countries, SUSTAIN 2 will appoint roaming ambassadors to make and maintain regular contact with funding agencies. Each ambassador will be assigned to a cluster of countries, with the first appointment covering southern Europe. To support expansion in south east Europe, SUSTAIN 2 will support activities for the Western Balkans ESS regional network. For countries who join the ESS for the first time (or re-join after a period of absence), national coordinators will be given a full country briefing by the ESS core scientific team.

The use of tools developed over the past few years has significantly improved the implementation of the survey lifecycle. SUSTAIN 2 will allow the ESS to further progress these, specifically through the development of a centrally programmed version of a Computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) source questionnaire and contact form. The use of the translation management tool (TMT) – developed under the Synergies for Europe's Research Infrastructures in the Social Sciences (SERISS) project – will be refined and expanded. SUSTAIN 2 will also facilitate the collection of paradata via CAPI to monitor fieldwork in real time. Training materials for all tools will also be implemented.

The majority of SUSTAIN 2 funding will be allocated to preparing and implementing an ESS web panel in 12 countries. Firstly, the methodology for a harmonised probability-based web panel will be outlined. Secondly, sample management and questionnaire administration will be developed to coordinate the 12-country online survey. This harmonised, probability-based web panel has been fielded in Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK, with detailed implementation guides provided to all national teams. This part of the project is a progression from the three-country web panel (CRONOS) implemented as part of the SERISS project.

Once the 12-country web panel is implemented and successfully collects data, the ESS team working on SUSTAIN 2 will develop a specification for a web panel to be administered across all ESS participating countries. This specification will outline the costs of a future operation of the panel and include a fully costed funding model based on the experiences of implementing the 12-country panel. These specifications will form the basis for a formal prospectus, outlining the information for potential national funders of online data collection.