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Call for Abstracts

The 11th Conference of the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) will take place from 14th July to 18th July 2025 in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The scientific committee is now inviting researchers who are active in the field of survey research, survey methodology and data analysis to submit proposals for individual paper and poster presentations.

To be part of the conference programme, start by selecting a suitable session for your presentation. Here is a complete overview of all sessions that are being organised.

Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) to the session of your choice via the ESRA conference management system by 6th January 2025.

To submit an abstract, you must log in to your ESRA account (or create a new account if you do not already have one) and then follow the instructions provided. Please note that it is only possible to submit up to two abstracts as the first author/presenter.

The conference theme is ‘Promises and problems of new and alternative data sources and data formats for survey research. Methodological challenges and substantive conclusions’. We welcome submissions related to this theme, or in any other area of survey methodology or substantive area of survey research. We encourage proposals from researchers with a variety of backgrounds, including academic research, official statistics, commercial research, and government social research.

If you are an early career scholar, please consider applying for the Early Career Award or the newly established ESRA-WAPOR Student Support Award. Information regarding criteria, eligibility, and evaluation process is available here and here.

If you want to apply for a Travel & Stay Grant, see here.

The following are examples of topics that are of particular interest, and the list of available sessions broadly covers these areas:

Survey methodology and survey practice

  • Questionnaire development, testing and piloting; measurement issues
  • Online survey methods and surveys on mobile devices
  • Mixing modes and mode effects
  • Fieldwork processes, including responsive and adaptive designs
  • Analysing, monitoring and reducing Total Survey Error; using paradata to evaluate survey quality
  • Sample designs, coverage, and sampling (probability and nonprobability)
  • Unit and item nonresponse
  • Interviewers and interviewer effects
  • Methods for cross-national and cross-cultural surveys
  • Longitudinal surveys
  • Experiments in general population surveys
  • Survey practice in times of geo-political and humanitarian crises

Hard-to-reach populations

  • Sampling migrants
  • Surveying refugees
  • Intersectionality in sample surveys

Measuring concepts in surveys

  • Operationalization of concepts
  • Measuring sex and gender identity in survey
  • Measuring migration background
  • Measuring occupation and other socio-demographic information

Innovation in surveys: methods and new sources of data

  • Collecting biomarkers and other specimen data within surveys
  • Innovations and emerging methods: life-tracking and sensor data; blue-tooth and near field technology; web scraping for data collection
  • AI, machine learning, application of computational methods in survey research
  • Gamification of surveys
  • Live video interviewing

Data management, processing, and documentation

  • Data documentation, archiving and data access
  • Privacy and confidentiality; consent
  • Data security and access
  • Post-survey processing – coding and editing; related errors
  • Weighting in probability and nonprobability-based sample surveys
  • Imputation methods

Data linkage and data harmonization

  • Survey data harmonization
  • Linking survey data to auxiliary data sources (geodata, social media data, administrative and big data sources)

Developments in survey analysis techniques

  • Longitudinal analysis techniques
  • Multi-level techniques
  • Comparative methods and equivalence testing
  • Methods to estimate and adjust for survey errors
  • Social network analysis
  • Visualisation of survey data
  • Longitudinal analysis techniques
  • Multi-level techniques
  • Methods to estimate and adjust for survey errors
  • Social network analysis
  • Visualisation of survey data
  • Qualitative methods

Substantive applications of survey research

  • COVID-19: attitudes toward vaccination, vaccination intentions, conspiracy beliefs etc.
  • Election polling and public opinion
  • Values
  • Migration
  • Social indicators
  • Comparative research
  • Evaluation research
  • Life course studies

All abstracts will be reviewed by the session organisers and the ESRA Conference Committee. Decisions will be communicated by the end of January 2025. Please note that, if accepted, your abstract may be assigned to a different session than the one you submit it to.

Don’t miss the opportunity to be part of the ESRA 2025 programme!