Minutes from the General Assembly, Milan 2023

ESRA General Assembly, Tuesday 18th July 2023, 17:15

Minutes of the 2021 General Assembly
The minutes from the 2021 were approved, unanimously.
Report from thew president (Vera Toepoel)
President Vera Toepoel reports to the Assembly on the activities conducted by the ESRA board over the two years 2021-2023. In planning the 10^th ESRA conference, the association had to face the uncertainty associated with Covid-19 and the potential impact of the social distancing measures on conference participation and organisation.
Several steps were taken towards the professionalisation of ESRA: it was considered (but ultimately discarded) the possibility of obtaining support from the professional agency SAS for financial matters. Existing support for website, panel management and conference system were kept into place.
A novelty for ESRA was the introduction of ESRA podcasts. The president encourages ESRA members to volunteer to participate in the next podcast series.
The website improved widely thanks to the work of the board member in charge of communication (Alexander Wenz).
Board members responsible for GDPR (Salima Douhou and Michael Bergmann) worked towards ensuring that ESRA is GDPR compliant.
Bylaws amendment (Vera Toepoel)
An amendment in the bylaws was necessary to ensure that the association is GDPR compliant.
Specifically, the bylaw currently reads: “Part 2 (h) membership (4) The trustees must keep a register of names and addresses of the members which must be made available to any member upon request.”. It is proposed to change the bylaw as follows: “Part 2 (h) membership (4) The trustees must keep a register of names and addresses of the members.”
ESRA members were invited to vote online ahead of the General Assembly. Out of 622 ESRA members invited to vote for the bylaws change, 30% (188) participated in the vote (the quorum was reached). Among those 84% (159 votes) voted in favour, 7% (14) against, and 8% (15) selected the option “I do not vote”. Hence, the bylaws amendment was approved.
Report treasurer (Emily Gilbert)
ESRA is a registered charity in the UK (charity number: 1150506). It’s charity status implies transparency in financial matters (Requires accounts and annual return).
The Covid-19 pandemic posed challenges to ESRA financial situation. As the main source of income for ESRA is the conference, the lack of an in-person conference in 2021 (due to Covid-19) was problematic – however, also expenses in 2021 were lower compared to typical conference years. Major sources of expenses in 2021 and 2022 were: the costs of Survey Research Methods articles and publications, website and IT costs, sponsorship costs, and (in 2021) conference costs.
Report SRM Journal (Ulrich Kohler)
Survey Research Methods (SRM) is ESRA’s peer reviewed open access journal. The journal is indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Journal’s costs are sustained by ESRA. Two issues are published every year.
The journal impact factor has recently deeply improved. The main reason seem to be a special issue on Covid, which was widely quoted. The editor foresees some possible rebounding after this spike. Rejection rate is now approximately 60-80%. The length of time between submission and acceptance is typically 1 year, while “days to reject” are typically 150 days. The length of time for rejection has decreased lately (and the rejection rate increased) due to high rate of desk rejections of papers on topics that are totally out of the journal focus. The journal licence has now changed from CCBY-NC to CCBY. A new typesetting company will start their services in December 2023.
Awards Ceremony (Stephanie Steinmetz)
The Westat Early Career Award is attributed to the best paper to be presented during the conference by a junior scholar (or team of junior scholars). The award is sponsored by Westat. In total 21 papers were submitted. The International evaluation commission was composed by: Anne Elevelt (CBS, NL), Bella Struminskaya (UU, NL), Henning Silber (GESIS, DE), Michael Graetz (UNIL, CH), Michele Ernst-Staehli (FORS, CH), Oliver Lipps (FORS, CH), Verena Ortmanns (DIE, DE), Stephanie Steinmetz (UNIL, CH). The award is attributed to the paper: “Care to Share? Investigating Determinants of Code Sharing Behavior in the Social Sciences” by Daniel Krähmer and Laura Schächtele (with Andreas Schneck).
The Best Paper Award 2023 is attributed to authors of the highest quality publications in the journal Survey Research Methods between 2021-2023. A total of 6 papers were pre-selected on basis of their originality, relevance and rigor and subsequently evaluated by a selection of ESRA Board Members (i.e. Tom Smith, Marieke van Gerner-Haan, Rory Fitzgerald, Ting Yan, Salima Douhou and Stephanie Steinmetz). The award is attributed to the paper: “The Role of Time, Weather and Google Trends in Understanding and Predicting Web Survey Response” by Qixiang Fang, Joep Burger, Ralph Meijers and Kees van Berkel.
The Outstanding Service Award 2023 acknowledges sustained and high-level contributions to European survey research, either of a methodological, substantive or infrastructural nature. Through an open nomination call to all ESRA members 5 nominations were received and voted by all ESRA Board Members (18). The award was attributed to Prof. Don A. Dillman Regents Professor and Deputy Director for Research and Development in the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC) Washington State University.
Presentation new board & farewell (Vera Toepoel)
ESRA members were invited to vote online ahead of the General Assembly for the new board. Elections were held under option 2, bylaw 4.2.
Out of 622 members invited to vote, 31% (190) participated in the vote for the new board. Among those 93% (177 votes) voted in favour, 2% (3) against, and 5% (10) selected the option “I do not vote”. Hence, the new board was approved.
- New board (existing members):
  - Vera Lomazzi (President)
  - Alexander Wenz (Vice President)
  - Daniel Seddig (Conference Chair)
  - Alessandra Gaia (General Secretary)
  - Emily Gilbert (Treasurer)
  - Olga Mavlovskaya (Education)
  - Ulrich Kohlor (Editor Survey Research Methods)
  - Michael Bergmann (GDPR Compliance)
  - Tom Smith (Constitutional Affairs)
  - Stephanie Steinmetz (Awards)
  - Daniil Lebedev (Podcasts)
  - Rene Bautista
  - Vera Toepoel
- New board (new members):
  - Angelo Moretti
  - Mengyao Hu
  - Pablo Cabrera Alvarez
  - Trent Buskirk
  - Alisu Schoua-Glusberg
  - Carina Cornesse
- Five existing committee members are standing down:
  - Marieke van Gerner-Haan
  - Antje Kirchner
  - Salima Douhou
  - Rory Fitzgerald
  - Ting Yan
Any other business (Vera Toepoel)
None
Travel/Bursary Awards (Vera Lomazzi)
Travel and Bursary awards are offered to those Postgraduate Students and Early Career Researchers in need of financial support. The grant amounts to €500 maximum, to cover an individual’s travel and stay expenses and grant recipients are also compensated for the basic registration fee. 38 applications were received. Grant recipients are: Lisa de Vries (Bielefeld University, Germany), P. Linh Nyguyen (University of Essex, University of Mannheim, United Kindgom/Germany), Griessl Lukas (University of Essex, United Kingdom), Melike Sarac (Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies, Turkey), Dalila Failli (University of Florence, Italy), Daniil Lebedev (HSE University, Russian Federation), Kamila Izimova (HSE University, Uzbekistan), Tlegen Kuandykov (Central Asia Barometer, Kazakhstan), Anastasiia Shyroka (Ukrainian Catholic University, Ukraine), and Zara Zinde (Bielefeld University, Germany).
Closing & thank you (Vera Lomazzi)
Vera Lomazzi, newly elected ESRA president, closes the Assembly.