Survey Futures is led by researchers from the universities of Essex and Southampton and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for a three-year period, which began in July 2023.

The main objective of the initiative is to ensure that it will remain possible in the UK to carry out high-quality social surveys of the kinds required by the public and academic sectors to monitor and understand society, and to provide a solid base for policy.

The nine research projects chosen for funding are focused on building evidence in different data collection techniques and approaches to keep survey methods fit for purpose.

The projects include:

• Could the ONS Reference Data Management Framework transform how social surveys are conducted in the UK? (led by Gerry Nicolaas, National Centre for Social Research)
• Do we still need non-response follow-ups to web surveys of the UK general population? An analysis of cost-quality trade-offs (led by Gabriele Durrant, University of Southampton)
• Assessing methods for within-household selection in self-administered push-to-web surveys (led by Peter Lynn, University of Essex)
• Harnessing Generative AI for questionnaire design, evaluation and testing (led by Patrick Sturgis, London School of Economics)
• Why are respondents less likely to consent to data linkage in web than in-person interviews, and what can we do to increase informed consent in web? (led by Annette Jackle, University of Essex)
• Targeted use of differential monetary incentives in social surveys (led by Alessandra Gaia, University College London)
• Post pandemic role of face-to-face survey interviewers: stakeholder engagement (led by Debbie Collins, National Centre for Social Research)
• Assessing and disseminating methods for handling mode effects (led by Liam Wright, University College London)
• Under-represented population subgroups in social surveys: Methods for respondent-driven sampling with probability-based seeds (led by Olga Maslovskaya, University of Southampton)

Professor Peter Lynn, principal investigator at Survey Futures, said: “This set of nine research projects represent excellent value for money and support the overall objectives of Survey Futures. 

“These new projects should allow Survey Futures as a whole to provide a comprehensive view of current best survey methods in this area, so that surveys can continue to deliver high quality research to inform policy.”