The ESS Data website has been upgraded with a cumulative data file for the first four rounds of the ESS. The cumulative data are available from a new tool, the ESS Cumulative Data Wizard, where users can customise their own subsets of data in different formats.

For ESS rounds 1 to 4 there has been an upgrade of the harmonised variables for highest level of education.

As of 02.02.2011, the former 7 category EDULVL variables for respondent, partner, father and mother have been replaced by a 5 category EDULVLA variables.

In addition, depending on the availability and level of detail of country specific education variables, new 7 category harmonised education variables EISCED have been produced.

Sample design data files (SDDF) are available in SAS and SPSS format, along with a PDF file describing the structure and use of the SDDFs. The files are available from the ESS3 - 2006 Data download section for the following countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine and United Kingdom

All rounds of the ESS have been updated in a major upgrade of the ESS Data website 02.02.11. Note that edition 4.0 of data and documentation of the new ESS4 data release also includes two new countries, Ireland and Lithuania, taking the total number of countries in the ESS4 data release to 30.

In ESS rounds 2, 3 and 4 the variables IMPFREE (G11) and IPHLPPL (G12) were switched for women in the questionnaire for Germany. For ESS round 4 the data for these two variables has been recoded and is now correct in edition 3.0 of the integrated file. For ESS2 (edition 3.1) and ESS3 (edition 3.2) the data will be recoded, and the correct data be made available in future releases of the ESS2 and ESS3 data.

In ESS rounds 2 and 3, unlike round 1, many interviewers appear not to have probed respondents sufficiently if they simply reported their religion as being "Christian". Rather than asking for more details about the Christian denomination to which the respondent felt they belonged, the interviewer instead used the "Other Christian Denomination" category (category 4). This is likely to apply mainly to respondents belonging to the Anglican church/Church of England. When compared to R1 data, this results in far fewer respondents being coded as category 1 "Protestant", and far more as category 4 "other Christian Denominations". The variables RLGDNM and RLGDNME for the UK round 2 and round 3 will be removed from the integrated file, renamed and included in the country-specific file for the UK.

The answer category scale 00 "Extremely dissatisfied" to 10 "Extremely satisfied" was erroneously reversed in the Romanian questionnaire so that 00 means "Extremely satisfied" and 10 means "Extremely dissatisfied". A recoded version of the variables STFJB (E48) and STFJBOT (E49) for Romania will be available in future releases of the ESS3 data.

The ESS Data and Documentation section has been updated with a cumulative data file for the first eight rounds of the ESS. The cumulative data are available from the ESS Cumulative Data Wizard, where users can customise their own subsets of data in different formats. The ESS Cumulative Data Wizard gives access to cumulative data from countries that have been included in the integrated ESS files in two or more rounds. All variables that have been asked in more than one round are included in the cumulative data file.

The ESS Data web site has been upgraded with the cumulative file for the first three rounds of the ESS. The file contains data from countries that have fielded at least two of the first three ESS rounds.

The ESS Data web site has been upgraded with new editions of the integrated files ESS1-2002 edition 6.1, ESS2-2004 edition 3.1 and ESS3-2006 edition 3.2. For further information, please se Version notes for ESS1, ESS2 and ESS3 respectively.