The Coronavirus pandemic is having widespread implications on people, businesses and research across the world, and the European Social Survey (ESS) is no exception.
As a result, the second release of Round 9 (2018/19) was published slightly later in mid-June, and not late May as originally planned.
Our Round 10 (2020/21) face-to-face data collection is due to begin in September 2020 – the Coronavirus situation will most likely have implications on this fieldwork.
Specifically, this is due to uncertainties on when it will be possible to start fieldwork as well as a likely backlog in delayed face-to-face projects from the first half of 2020.
The ESS core scientific team (CST) has therefore agreed – in consultation with national coordinators (NCs) – that participating countries should aim to start face-to-face fieldwork as close as possible to 1 March 2021.
However – given the feasibility to undertake in person interviews is likely to vary considerably between countries – our fieldwork period will be more flexible than usual, allowing countries to start collecting survey data at any time between 1 September 2020 and 1 September 2021.
To maintain the comparability of our data as much as possible in these difficult times, all Round 10 fieldwork must be finished by 31 December 2021.
ESS ERIC Director, Professor Rory Fitzgerald, said:
“The data from ESS Round 10 will be especially powerful enabling changes in a wide range of sociological, political and economic measures to be interpreted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“However, as a face-to-face survey, the ESS has serious challenges ahead on conducting fieldwork in a very challenging context. We will work closely with our national teams to respond to this challenge with as much flexibility as possible.”
Article was originally published on ESS website: https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/about/singlenew.html?a=/about/news/essnews0083.html
