The Innovation Panel is a sample of 1,500 households used by researchers as a test-bed for innovative ways of collecting data and for developing new areas of research. The Innovation Panel helps develop leading-edge survey methods and content that will ensure the ongoing success of Understanding Society and generate important new knowledge. Experiments are carried out, and questions, procedures and methods are tested and used in a context similar to the main Understanding Society survey in order to make that test-bed as realistic as possible.
Read more about the Innovation Panel
Each year the Innovation Panel offers researchers the opportunity to suggest experiments that can be carried in the next wave of data collection.
What does the competition involve?
Proposals must have an experimental or methodological element related to the design of survey instruments (e.g. question wording, item order, etc.) or to features of the survey design (e.g. procedures intended to reduce non-response or to improve fieldwork efficiency).
Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of their scientific quality and publication potential. There are no costs to successful applicants, unless the proposal includes non-standard survey elements.
Read the full call for proposals and find the application form here.
What is the deadline?
The deadline for submission is 12 April 2021. This is an invitation to academics and researchers to submit proposals for studies to be incorporated on the Understanding Society Innovation Panel Wave 15. Data collection will take place in Spring 2022.
How to enter
Read the call for proposals first and then apply online. The deadline is 12 April 2021. Successul applicants will be notified in July. Final acceptance is conditional on fully establishing the feasibility of the proposed study with the fieldwork agency. If you have any questions about your submission, please contact Annette Jäckle, Understanding Society Associate Director for Innovations.
Survey methodology
