SOCIAL SURVEYS AND PUBLIC OPINION POLLS
During all years of its history CESSI maintains close ties with largest academic research centers and international survey organizations across the world. CESSI scholars are well-known scientists and experts in the methodology of survey research, comparative surveys, questionnaire design and translation, methodological aspects of studying life values and attitudes, constructing social indicators, and also in the different social science fields – political sociology, social stratification research, sociology of professions and many others.
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CESSI cooperates with the Institute of philosophy of Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Sociology of Russian Academy of Sciences, Highest School of Economics and many other Russian academic institutions. CESSI is involved in research projects with leading international research organizations - GESIS (Germany), FORS (Switzerland), City University London (UK), Maryland University (USA), University of Notre Dame (USA), Iowa University (USA), Pew Research Center (USA), etc. The results of this cooperation are the implementation of important sociological research on life values, labor values, adaptive professional strategies in time of modernization, studies of entrepreneurship and issues of professional education, labor and professional activities and promotion.
CESSI is the winner of many international and Russian scientific tenders and calls for research grants. Independent reviewers and funding agencies highly evaluated CESSI research proposals and high standard of survey implementation.
Since 2006 CESSI works in the largest and the most reputable European comparative project in Europe – European Social Survey (ESS). ESS is currently the leading platform for developing comparative research methods in social sciences in general and in different aspects of comparative survey methodology – questionnaire design and testing, designing comparative samples, constructing comparable socio-demographic data (on education, professions, ancestry, etc.). The materials and results of this survey are allocated in free access on website of the project www.europeansocialsurvey.org and website for Russian social survey www.ess-ru.ru.
QUALITY OF LIFE SURVEYS IN RUSSIA AS A WHOLE AND IN DIFFERENT RUSSIAN REGIONS
Based on results of multiple CESSI surveys conducted in the last two decades in Russian regions we developed the Index of quality of life for cross-national, regional and micro-regional comparisons (quality of life in different municipalities). It allows to measure long-term and short-term changes in quality of life on macro and micro level taking into account both objective and subjective indicators.
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ECONOMIC EXPECTIONS AND THE SUBJECTIVE PERCEPTION OF THE INFLATION TRENDS IN RUSSIA AND POST-SOVIET COUNTRIES
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STUDIES OF BUSINESS CLIMATE IN RUSSIA
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CESSI conducts public opinion polls on important issues of politics, social relations, government policies, socio-economic issues. Polls are based on probability random samples of general population using different modes – personal at-home interviews, telephone interviews, online surveys. Public opinion polls are conducted also in separate regions (oblast/ krai, republics) and municipalities on local issues and regional public agenda.
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Politics is one of the most dynamic and unpredictable areas in all countries of the former Soviet Union – from Baltic countries to Central Asia. In this multi-facet and competitive economic and political environment any predictions are more difficult than even few years ago. CESSI provides unbiased and reliable information to mass media, information agencies, political analysts and political scientists which help in designing and performing election campaigns, conducts the extensive analysis of national public agenda, interests, needs and demands of different social groups, measures the position and rating of politicians, parties, institutions, issues, evaluate political claims, statements and different policy options. CESSI helps to understand motives and needs of social, economic and professional groups, strengths and barriers of different policy decisions.
In the day of elections all information agencies and stakeholders are seeking to learn the results as soon as possible. First Exit Poll was conducted by CESSI in 1993 Referendum in Russia with the methodological support of world leading scholar on exit polls Warren Mitofsky for the consortium of Western and domestic mass media. Our results were widely broadcasted by major news agencies and media CNN, NTV, CBC, NBC, Reuters, Russian channels. CESSI perceptions are precise and reliable and in the same time the most resource-effective relying.
CESSI is an expert in studying key social problems of modern society, such as health, medical provision, education, employment, demographic issues, social problems of sciences, technologies and innovations, issues of migration and inter-ethnic relations, religions and human values.
STUDYING EDUCATION
Issues of education are related to many different target groups and stakeholders. We work with professors, school teachers, students, parents, NGO, mass media and government officials on municipal, regional and national level on issues of education as social value and social driver, relations between major actors of educational process (students, teachers, parents, employer, government, society), establishing educational standards, business demands in education and many others.
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STUDYING SCIENCE, SCIENTISTS, INNOVATIONS AND TECHNOLOGIES
CESSI conducts surveys in the field of sociology of sciences, on social issues of science, innovation and technologies. We have extensive experience and capacity to work with such target groups and academic, education and media communities, IT and high technology sectors, entrepreneurs and innovation groups. Topics covered by CESSI are image and the prestige of science, academic and research organizations, R&D industry, innovative, entrepreneurial activities and issue of creativity.
SURVEYS OF HEALTH AND MEDICAL SERVICES
CESSI covers wide ranges of research issues related to social aspects of people’s health. We work with different target groups – general population, patients, consumers of pharmaceutical products, doctors and other medical practitioners, NGO, regulators and government authorities.
Surveys on health issues require special methods, approaches and qualification designing and drawing the sample, designing the questionnaire, conducting interviews on many sensitive and confidential issues. CESSI has a pool of well-trained experienced interviews for conducting health-related interviews. We employ special methods of working with sensitive questions, including procedures for confidentiality and anonymity of information obtained from respondents.
SURVEYS OF FAIRNESS, CORRUPTION, LAW OBEDIENCE AND TRUST TO LEGAL SYSTEM
Studying public views on fairness and rule of law is one of the main areas of CESSI work for many years. CESSI gained high reputation in the field of justice and democracy research as high quality independent trustworthy source of social information. Since beginning of 1990s CESSI studies the most fundamental issues of fairness – understanding of this concept, criteria of fairness applying in different situation, principles and judgments about fairness, fairness issues in interaction of population with different institutions, legal and law-enforcement system, issues of corruption. These topics are studied using different research methods including national and regional population surveys, in-depth interviews with different groups of population, experts, stakeholders, professional groups (judges, lawyers, NGOs, educational and academic communities).
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STUDYING ECOLOGICAL ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR
For more than 20 years CESS studies the issues of ecological attitudes and environmentally-friendly behavior. Research issues included public perception of the place of ecological problems in national and regional agenda, evaluation of personal and public relevance of ecological issues, readiness to participate in mitigating activities, knowledge and attitudes to climate change issue, energy security. These issues were studies in individual countries (Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan) and also in comparative cross-national context.
Since 1998 CESSI participates in international project “Monitoring of global and ecological issues and corporate responsibility” initiated and managed by GlobeScan (Canada). This long-term cross-sectional comparative survey is conducted in 25 countries of the work based on national representative samples of general population.
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Rotating module “PUBLIC ATTITUDES TO CLIMAGE CHANGE, ENERGY SECURITY, AND ENERGY PREFERENCES” included in 7th round of ESS (2016-2017) is intended to study the attitudes of general population of European countries toward the climate change issues, ecological behavior and perceptions of energy security. The work on the preparation of research materials and data analysis of this module in Russia was supported by joint grand of RHSF and scientific funds of ES countries ERA.Net RUS Plus 2016-2017 (7th Framework research programmes between the EU Member States/ Associated Countries and Russia) «Public Attitudes to welfare, climate change and energy in the EU and Russia - PAWCER». The project united leading European research institutions GESIS, FORS, University of Cardiff (UK), University of Leuven (Belgium), European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research (ECV) (Austria), University of Tampere (Finland) and CESSI from Russian side. Results of ESS rotating module was broadly discussed in international and national mass media, in scientific articles and reports.
Topline results are published in ESS brochures
(http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/findings/ESS8_pawcer_welfare.pdf and http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/docs/findings/ESS8_pawcer_climate_change.pdf).
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STUDYING RELIGIOUSITY AND RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOUR
Studying religious views, beliefs and behavior in population surveys is a complicated task which requires special training, knowledge and skills. Many religious issues are highly sensitive, considered as personal information, subject of social desirability bias and also complicated for formal interview. Studying religion in post-Soviet region with its high religious, cultural and linguistic diversity is even more complicated than many other regions. CESSI has experience studying followers of mainstream and minor religions and denominations, Orthodox and Muslims, Catholics and Protestants, Buddhists and followers of new religious. CESSI conducted several unique research projects on issues of religion, religious behavior and religious values in the countries of the format Soviet Union. Among them are academic project “MORAL AND RELIGIOUS VIEWS AND VALUES OF GENERAL RUSSIAN POPULATION AND RUSSIAN REGIONS», «GLOBAL SURVEY OF RELIGIOUS FUTURE” for Pew Research Center.
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When conducting any large-scale social programs – educational, charity, information or any other, one of the key elements of successful implementation of the project is information about effectiveness of program and it’s elements – actions, events, campaigns. Feedback from participants and stakeholders gives confidence that resources and efforts were spent properly and that positive and negative experience is analyzed and accumulated for further projects. CESSI is an expert in conducting evaluation studies, measuring impact and consequences of social campaigns. Methods of evaluation include interviews with social groups targeted for the impact, comparative evaluation with reference groups which were not impacted, in-depth interviews and focus-groups with participants and organizers of social programs, diaries, online forums and whiteboards before, during and after the campaign.