Minutes from the General Assembly, Lisbon 2017

European Survey Research Association (ESRA) 7th General Assembly

Tuesday, 18 July, 2017, Lisbon, Portugal, 18:00

1. Minutes of 2015 General Assembly and Matters Arising.
   The minutes from 2015 were approved without any changes.
2. Report from the President (Eldad Davidov).
   President Eldad Davidov presented his report, including details of recent and future events in addition to the main biennial conference, bursaries and sundry other matters.
3. Report from the Treasurer (Jon Burton / Gabriele Durrant).
   Treasurer Jon Burton presented his Treasurer’s report. Financial situation is positive and showed a balance of over 100k in 2016. Projection for 2017 is for an increased surplus because of more conference registrations and increased sponsorship. Questions from the floor on Brexit and its implication for banking. JB mentioned subcommittee looking into protecting against currency instability.
4. Report from the editor of Survey Research Methods (Ulrich Kohler).
   Ulrich Kohler presented his report. Impact factor down for 2016 to 0.5 but five year impact factor 1.2. Submissions and readers up. 70 percent rejection rate. Special Issues and general ‘think pieces’ should be increased. Transparency and Openness Promotion guidelines ‘have been implemented. Slightly changed copyright rules.
5. Elections to the Executive Committee.
   Existing members:
   Bart Meuleman to President
   Annelies Blom to Vice-President
   Caroline Roberts to Conference Chair
   Alex Cernat to Vice Conference Chair
   Gerry Nicholas to General Secretary
   
   New members to be voted:
   Ana Villar — committee member (Vice Conference Chair)
   Tom Smith — committee member (task to be filled later)
   Ting Yang — committee member (task to be filled later)
   Antje Kirchner — committee member (organizer of the BigSurv18 conference on behalf of ESRA)
   Marieke Haan — committee member (task to be filled later)
   Salima Douhou — committee member (task to be filled later)
   
   There was a question about whether or not new committee members should have been voted on as there were more applicants than positions. ED said that competitive elections for committee places will be brought in for 2019.
   All officers were elected unopposed.
6. Plans for the 2019 conference (Caroline Roberts).
   Caroline Roberts discussed plans for 2019 conference. No firm arrangements yet and invited more proposals from teams to host the conference.
   • Eldad Davidov thanked the outgoing officers and the local team for their work.
   • Incoming president Bart Meuleman thanked ED for his work and presented him with a gift.

There was no other business and the meeting closed at 18.50.