The European Social Survey (ESS ERIC) is set to receive €3.2 million from the European Commission to modernize and future-proof its research infrastructure. Centerdata will participate as one of six members of the Core Scientific Team.
ESS is a European research program that maps public attitudes, beliefs and behavior through high-quality, publicly accessible data. The new project, called ESS-Innovate, is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program and will start on 1 June 2026, running for a period of 30 months. The project will focus on the introduction of new technologies, such as AI tools, and on expanding ESS membership among EU member states and candidate countries. In 2028, a major ESS conference will be held in Brussels to support these efforts.
Centerdata’s role: self-completion tools
A key component of ESS-Innovate is the continuous improvement of tools for self-completion survey research, so that respondents can independently complete questionnaires online or on paper. From Wave 13 (2026/27) onwards, ESS questionnaire data will be collected exclusively through self-completion methods. The tools that Centerdata developed for this purpose will continuously be improved within ESS-Innovate.
CRONOS expanded to three new countries
The ESS Cross-National Online Survey panel (CRONOS) will be expanded as well. This panel tracks how public attitudes and behavior evolve over time across multiple countries simultaneously. For the first time, national teams from Germany, the Netherlands, and Serbia will take part. During Wave 12 of the ESS, respondents will be recruited and the national teams will receive training in the use of the CRONOS tools developed by Centerdata and ESS.
International consortium
ESS-Innovate involves six ESS Core Scientific Team (CST) members: ESS ERIC HQ, at City St George’s, University of London (UK), Centerdata (Netherlands), GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (Germany), Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (Norway), Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain), and University of Essex (UK). Five other organizations participate as beneficiaries, including Tilburg University and the Polish Academy of Sciences.