Event

20 Years of Impact: Celebrating the European Social Survey

20th anniversary of the European Social Survey

Event time:

4th June 2024 14:00 – 17:00
Event address:

City, University of London, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB
Format:

hybrid

In 2024, the European Social Survey (ESS) celebrates its 20th anniversary and the ESRC has been a proud funder of the UK module of the ESS since its inception. As the UK’s largest funder of economic, social, behavioural and human data science, the ESRC supports a number of world-leading research projects, to understand people and the world around us.

At the recent half-day event, the ESRC brought together a series of speakers to showcase some of the high-quality international survey research it had funded, to coincide with ESS' anniversary. Researchers had the opportunity to gain access to world-class data, with the event highlighting the power of the datasets generated by valuable social surveys and the insights that supported policy-making decisions with potential benefits for wider society.

Featuring a diverse line-up of speakers and covering a range of key policy themes, the event proved to be a thought-provoking and informative gathering that celebrated the achievements of the European Social Survey while looking towards the future of international survey research.

Speakers

Professor Rory Fitzgerald

Director European Social Survey (ESS)

Professor Rory Fitzgerald became Director of the European Social Survey (ESS) in 2013, having been a Senior Research Fellow at City, University of London since 2004. In November 2013, the UK and 14 other European governments established the European Social Survey as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ESS ERIC) – an independent international research organisation hosted at City, University of London. ESS ERIC now has 28 Members. Rory is the first Director of ESS RERIC and oversees the ESS Core Scientific Team (CST) and the ESS National Coordinators Forum. In addition to these committees, he works closely with the General Assembly as well as the Scientific and Methods advisory boards.
Professor Bobby Duffy

Director of the Policy Institute King's College London

Bobby Duffy is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute. He has worked across most public policy areas in his career of 30 years in policy research and evaluation, including being seconded to the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. Bobby sits on several advisory boards, including chairing both the Campaign for Social Science and the CLOSER Advisory Board, and is a member of the Executive of the Academy of Social Sciences, a trustee of British Future and a Senior Fellow of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.
Brienna Perelli-Harris

Professor of Demography University of Southampton

Brienna Perelli-Harris is Professor of Demography at the University of Southampton. She is interested in studying changes in the family in comparative perspective. Working with researchers across the world, she explores the development of new family formation behaviours. She also studies demographic change in Ukraine, including fertility, displacement, and depopulation. Currently she holds a UK ESRC-funded grant to conduct the Generations and Gender Survey in the UK. She is Associate Editor for Population Studies, on the Scientific Board of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey and European Doctoral School of Demography, and Board Member of the European Consortium for Sociological Research. In 2016, the European Association for Population Studies awarded her the Dirk van de Kaa Award for Social Demography.
Natalie Maplethorpe

Research Director National Centre for Social Research

View full profile

Natalie is a Research Director at NatCen and currently leads the Survey of Londoners and the European Social Survey. She returned to NatCen in 2021 after working for M&C Saatchi World Services and Plan International. In her previous role at NatCen, she managed a number of large-scale quantitative projects including the National Diet and Nutrition Survey and a study of sodium intake in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
She has a BSc in Psychology from the University of Warwick and a MSc in Social Research Methods from the University of Surrey.

Chair

Professor Alison Park

Deputy Executive Chair Economic and Social Research Council

Professor Alison Park is Deputy Executive Chair of ESRC and the SRO for UKRI’s new cross research council responsive mode pilot scheme, launched in 2023 to support new interdisciplinary ideas emerging from the research community outside current disciplinary boundaries. Alison joined ESRC in 2019 having previously led CLOSER (Cohort and Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources), an ESRC-funded collaboration based at UCL Institute of Education. CLOSER brings together leading UK longitudinal studies, the British Library and the UK Data Service to maximise the use, value and impact of longitudinal studies. Prior to joining UCL Alison led research activity at NatCen Social Research, focused on designing, implementing and analysing government and academic studies and evaluations, including Understanding Society (the UK Household Longitudinal Survey) and the British Social Attitudes Survey. Alison was awarded a CBE for services to social sciences in the 2018 New Year Honours and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.