Round 12 rotating modules selected

The European Social Survey (ESS) has selected questions on immigration and wellbeing to be included in Round 12 of the survey, currently due to be fielded in 2025.

Following an open call for proposals from external academics, the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) selected applications on attitudes to immigrants and refugees and personal and social wellbeing.

In each round of the ESS, two topics of around 30 questions each are selected for inclusion in this way – this is the first time that two repeat modules have been chosen for a single round.

Attitudes towards immigration was first included in Round 1 (2002/03) of our survey and repeated in Round 7 (2014/15).

This data was analysed for the seventh issue in our Topline Results series – Attitudes towards Immigration and their Antecedents – published in November 2016.

This new iteration of the module proposes to repeat around two-thirds of the questions included in previous rounds together with an additional set of items that focus on attitudes towards refugees.

The module on personal and social wellbeing was first fielded in Round 3 (2006/07) of the ESS and repeated in Round 6 (2012/13).

It has been proposed that this latest version will include many of the items fielded in the previous iterations of the module with some modifications including important new themes.

Our fifth Topline Results report – Europeans’ Personal and Social Wellbeing – was published in April 2015 and included analysis of the Round 6 wellbeing data.

Professor Rory Fitzgerald, Director of the ESS, said:

“I am delighted these two very strong rotating modules have been selected for inclusion in ESS Round 12. Both modules address pressing societal and policy priorities, and each has been used by high numbers of ESS data users.

“The innovations will allow new areas to be examined while the direct repeats will facilitate time series analysis. I am confident that both modules will generate high quality data on issues essential to those living in Europe.

“I would like to thank all those who applied for a module and send my congratulations to the successful teams.”

Each rotating module includes around 30 questions and will be fielded in Round 12 (2025) of our survey, alongside the usual core module of over 150 questionnaire items.

The immigration team is led by Anthony Heath (University of Oxford, UK) – Eldad Davidov (University of Cologne) will act as deputy. Other team members include Tymofii Brik (Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine), Alice Ramos (University of Lisbon, Portugal), Justyna Salamońska (Kozminski University, Poland) and Borbála Simonovits (University of ELTE, Hungary).

The Round 12 personal and social wellbeing module was devised and proposed by a new team, led by Frank Martela (Aalto University, Finland) and supported by Antonella Delle Fave (University of Milan, Italy), Milena Nikolova (University of Groningen, Netherlands), Gundi Knies (Thünen Institute of Rural Studies, Germany) and Mark Fabian (University of Warwick, UK).

The SAB invited applications for new or repeat modules from multi-national teams of 3-5 researchers based at institutions in at least three different ESS participating countries.

The call for stage 1 applications was open from 14 February until 6 May 2022. A number of applicants were invited to submit a stage 2 application before 14 October 2022.

The successful applicants will begin working with the ESS Core Scientific Team in January 2023 to enhance the proposals into the finalised questions.

Read the successful second stage proposals:

Personal and social wellbeing

Attitudes to immigrants and refugees