ESRA 2027 sessions by theme
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AI in Project Management and Workflow Automation: Perspectives from Survey Organisations and Research Infrastructures |
| Coordinator 1 | Mr Niccolò Ghirelli (European Social Survey HQ (City St George's, University of London)) |
| Coordinator 2 | Ms Olga Grunwald (Generations and Gender Programme (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute)) |
| Coordinator 3 | Ms Aisling Connolly (European Social Survey HQ (City St George's, University of London)) |
Session Details
The organisation of large-scale survey programmes requires coordinating complex workflows, teams, institutions, and interconnected tasks. AI tools are increasingly reshaping how such tasks are distributed and carried out within survey organisations — from commercial chatbots supporting daily operational tasks to bespoke technology developed in-house, such as dashboards for monitoring survey preparations. This session intends to showcase how survey organisations and research infrastructures use AI and machine learning to improve their project management and survey operations workflows.
This session invites presentations from survey organisations and research infrastructures to share how they integrate AI into their operational structures. It will provide a platform for survey professionals to explain the rationale behind particular tools or approaches — commercial versus tailored, off-the-shelf versus in-house — and how these choices affect survey operations and data quality. Speakers are encouraged to reflect on both the benefits and challenges of adoption, including how it changes task division, oversight, and the skills required of survey infrastructure professionals. Presentations may also discuss organisational policies, staff training and workload, transparency, quality assurance procedures, and approaches used to evaluate AI-assisted workflows. The session particularly addresses the role of AI in project management and workflow, rather than its use in survey methodology or data processing.
As AI reshapes survey work, it also changes the roles of the professionals behind it — reinforcing the need to highlight infrastructure careers within the wider survey research community.
