Welcome to the European Social Survey.
The European Social Survey (ESS) is an academically driven survey using the highest methodological standards headquartered at City, University of London.
Since 2002/03, the ESS has provided cross-national data measuring public attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. Every two years, up to 40,000 interviews are conducted across Europe on a wide range of subjects.
Funded through membership fees from countries who take part, the ESS was made a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ESS ERIC) in 2013. It was the first ERIC to be hosted in the United Kingdom.
The involvement of the United Kingdom, and the extra costs of hosting an ERIC, are funded through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
The ESS also participates in several projects funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme.
ESS survey data is available completely free of charge for non-commercial use - all results from 2002/03 can be accessed and analysed online or downloaded for use in statistical software such as SPSS, Stata or R.
For more information, visit the ESS website.
As well as the HQ based at City, the ESS consists of many colleagues based in different areas of Europe.
Find out more about the people who are part of ESS HQ:
The award-winning and academically driven cross-national project collects survey data biennially measuring citizens’ attitudes and public opinions on a variety of topics across Europe.
Every two years, a questionnaire is conducted in up to 30 European nations. The interview lasts around one hour, and includes core questions asked in every round.
These questions focus on media consumption, institutional and social trust, democracy, government and politics, national and ethnic identity, health and wellbeing, discrimination, immigration, religion, the human values scale and a range of socio-demographic measures.
In each round of the survey, two topics are covered in more depth.
Each round of the ESS is funded by national funding agencies in each participating country.
All data and documentation is available free of charge on the ESS Data Portal. Since 2002, over 260,000 people have completed a short registration to access the data.
Follow the ESS on BlueSky, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter/X and YouTube.
The European Social Survey ERIC is participating in ERIC Forum 2 - a four-year project that brings together European Research Infrastructure Consortia (ERIC) across all scientific disciplines. The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101124559.
ERIC Forum 2 aims to structure the cooperation between ERICs, support the implementation of the ERIC Regulation and services, and consolidate the integration of the ERICs in the European Research Area by deepening the ERIC Forum’s contribution to research policies. The project began on 1 September 2024 and follows on from an initial implementation project.
Infra4NextGen is a €9.75m project being coordinated by the European Social Survey ERIC. The four-year project began on 1 March 2024. The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101131118.
The project will compile existing outputs from key social science research infrastructures to inform the NextGenerationEU recovery plan and European Union youth policy. NextGenerationEU aims for Europe ‘to build a greener, more digital and more resilient future’ with a focus on five key areas: Make it Green; Make it Digital; Make it Healthy; Make it Strong; and Make it Equal.
In each of the five areas, an inventory of relevant items already fielded on cross-national surveys will initially be produced, including Eurobarometer, European Quality of Life Survey, the ESS, Generations and Gender Programme (GGP), European Values Study (EVS) and the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Existing data from these surveys will be analysed and summarised to produce a series of policy-relevant tabulations and visualisations with commentary presented in a dedicated online portal.
This initial analysis will be supplemented with new data collected on each topic later in the project via our CROss-National Online Survey (CRONOS) Panel fielded over five waves in 11 countries (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom).
The ESS HQ is also involved in a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). Survey Futures is implementing a series of tasks to ensure that it remains possible to undertake high quality social surveys in the UK – of the kinds required by the public and academic sectors – to monitor and understand society, and to provide an evidence base for policy, in the future.
For the latest project news, visit the European Social Survey website.
Recent City news about the European Social Survey and relevant event listings can be found below:
Alongside Max Kaase, Sir Roger Jowell began developing the European Social Survey at the European Science Foundation (ESF) in 1995. The ESF would eventually ask Jowell to assemble a core team and apply to the European Commission for central funding to be matched by the participating countries.
In 2001, the European Social Survey was established at the National Centre for Social Research (now NatCen Social Research) in London. Since 2003, the ESS Headquarters have been hosted by City, University of London.
In 2001, Roger was awarded the CBE in the UK for his services to the social sciences. Seven years later, he was recognised again by the UK Government - this time awarded a knighthood to become Sir Roger Jowell.
Sir Roger passed away on Christmas Day 2011. Since then, City, University of London, NatCen Social Research and the Social Research Association have organised an annual memorial lecture in his name.
Professor Jane Falkingham CBE (ESRC Centre for Population Change) delivered the annual lecture in memory of Sir Roger Jowell on Wednesday 9 April.
The lecture focused on the increasing requirement to balance paid employment with unpaid care duties. The event was chaired by Professor Sir Ian Diamond (UK National Statistician).
This lecture was organised by City St George's, University of London, National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and the Social Research Association.
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Professor Rob Ford (University of Manchester) delivered the 10th lecture in memory of Sir Roger Jowell at City, University of London on Thursday 2 November.
The in-person and online event was chaired by Stian Westlake, Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Rosie Campbell (King’s College London) delivered the latest annual lecture in memory of our co-founder, Sir Roger Jowell, on Wednesday 12 October 2022.
The event was held at City, University of London and broadcast online. The chair was Alison Park, Interim Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
The lecture illustrated the invaluable contribution that the British Social Attitudes Survey and the British Election Study have made to the ability to understand the link between gender and voting behaviour; both surveys that Sir Roger Jowell played a leading role in establishing.
Paul Johnson (The Institute for Fiscal Studies) delivered the eighth annual lecture in memory of European Social Survey co-founder, Sir Roger Jowell, on Tuesday 28 September 2021. The event was chaired by new City President, Professor Anthony Finkelstein.
This year’s lecture assessed how inequalities in education and wealth, and between regions, ethnic minorities and generations, have been affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.
Sir Michael Marmot (Institute Health Equity) delivered the 2020 Roger Jowell Memorial Lecture - Social justice and health equity - in an online event on Wednesday 16 September 2020.
The Professor of Epidemiology at University College London discussed tackling health inequalities, insisting that policies and interventions must not be confined to the health care system. Sir Michael explained that policies are needed to address the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.
Professor Alissa Goodman and Rt Hon David Laws delivered the 2019 lecture - An uneven playing field: the causes and consequences of social inequalities in education - at City on 13 June 2019.
Alissa Goodman of University College London Institute of Education discussed research on inequalities, showing how longitudinal data is being used to understand the causes and consequences of educational disadvantage in the UK.
Speaking to the policy implications of educational disadvantage, Rt Hon David Laws - Executive Chairman of the Education Policy Institute - present findings from research on the evolution of the disadvantage gap, by phase, pupil type and area over the last decade.
A recording of the lecture is available
The fifth annual lecture in honour of Sir Roger Jowell was held at the British Academy in London on 21 May 2018. The lecture was delivered by Professor Jane Green of the University of Manchester who discussed her research into the 2015 and 2017 British elections.
Jane Green is Professor of Political Science in the Cathy Marsh Institute for Social Research and the Politics Department in Manchester and belongs to the Scientific Leadership Team of the British Election Study (BES).
The Chair of the lecture was Jennifer Rubin, Executive Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Professor Anand Menon discussed what the vote for Brexit means for the UK and its relationship with the countries who remain a part of the union. As Chair of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative, the Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King's College London offered valuable insight into this critical issue.
The fourth annual memorial lecture was held on 30 May 2017 and chaired by Professor Sara Hobolt, Sutherland Chair in European Institutions at the London School of Economics.
From May 2017 until March 2020, City St George's, University of London, the European Social Survey HQ and National Centre for Social Research held a series of survey methodology seminars. These moved to webinar format in March 2020. Where available, presentation slides and / or a recording of each event is linked below.
