The five constituencies chosen are Glasgow East, Thanet South, Taunton Deane, Dewsbury and Ealing Central & Acton.

Deborah Mattinson, founding director of BritainThinks said: “Described as one of the least predictable in living memory, we believe that it is not one election battleground but many. With the static national poll results obscuring the complex and diverse stories in each constituency, it’s more important than ever to understand what lies behind the numbers.”

As the election campaigns evolve the research company will be doing qualitative and ethnographic tracking research to understand how the swing voters are feeling about the election, what they’re noticing of the campaign, and the factors that will impact on how they vote in May.

It will also be running focus groups with each panel while panelists will be given an app to keep ‘election diaries’ on their smartphones.

The Guardian will be using these findings are part of its election coverage and BritainThinks will be uploading its researchers’ fieldwork notes to its website after each focus group.