The European Social Survey (ESS)

The European Social Survey (ESS) is an academically driven survey using the highest methodological standards.
The ESS was awarded European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) status in 2013 and currently has the highest number of member countries of all 32 ERICs across all scientific disciplines (30).

Conducted across Europe every two years since 2002, the survey includes around 200 questions which help map the social, political and moral climate in each country.

The survey includes questions on a wide range of topics and collects in-depth information for each respondent, so attitudes and behaviour can be studied by age, gender, education, income and other socio-demographics status.
With in-depth sampling and weighting, the data is representative of each national population, offering cross-country comparisons that support world leading scholarship and evidence-based policymaking.

39 countries have taken part in at least one round of the trailblazing survey since Round 1 was implemented in 2002/03.
Over half a million interviews have been conducted over 11 rounds, leading to 7,546 academic publications (2002-24) and over 5,500 references in policy papers listed by the Overton database (2002-26).

Almost 300,000 people have registered to access the data, with over 35,000 actively downloading data annually. The ESS is referenced in over 1,000 media articles every year.
There are 30 participating countries in the current round (Round 12, 2025/26) with data to be freely available from January 2027.

Learn more on www.europeansocialsurvey.org