ESRA is pleased to announce that its 9th Conference will be held online on 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30 July 2021.

Due to Covid-19 we will offer the conference virtually. Every Friday we will have two tracks or mini-conferences, each with its own program.

Highlighting the contribution of survey research to a new normal

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world has been adapting to a new normal. Working from home, keeping distance and temporary lockdowns have caused a major shift in what is considered to be a “normal” way of living.

Survey researchers have had to confront a number of challenges to the methods at the heart of their practice. In addition, rapid advances in technology have created a wealth of new opportunities for gathering and combining data. These developments have resulted in new opportunities for methodological research aimed at identifying best practice principles for practitioners and providing recommendations to analysts who work with the data.

The potential offered by new methods to gather data and restrictions due to Covid-19 are redefining the role that surveys play in social research, as well as bringing to light the continued importance and value of the scientific survey method as a tool for understanding society. 

ESRA community will continue the conversation about survey research in society online in July 2021. Although we will not be able to physically meet each other, it is paramount that we keep in contact to learn how survey research is conducted. We regret not being able to meet in person, but hope to see you online to learn from advances in survey research and related areas as well as to check-in with old ESRA colleagues and friends.

Organisation

The scientific program will be slightly different compared to previous conferences due to the online setting. We will work with mini-conferences or tracks that each have their own program. Two tracks will be offered every Friday in July. The conference will run in different time zones.

The online conference will be organized around the following tracks:

1. Surveys in the Covid-19 pandemic
2. Combining multiple sources of data
3. Ethics of data collection, processing, sharing, and use
4. Measurement error in surveys
5. Innovations in surveys: methods and new data sources
6. Questionnaire and survey user interface/experience design and evaluation
7. Advances in modelling: machine learning, deep learning, AI etc.
8. Unit and item nonresponse
9. Reducing Total Survey Error
10. Data management and processing

Each ESRA2021 track will be accessible via an online conference program and consist of pre-recorded talks and a live Q&A with the presenters during the last 15 minutes of each session. Presentation slides and recordings will be made available as permitted by the presenters. Registered participants will have access to all tracks.

Each session will consist of two parts: 1) streaming of talks, and 2) a live Q&A with the presenters during the last 15 minutes of each session. So be sure to be available for the live Q&A part of your session and engage in exciting discussions with the audience. If you are a poster presenter, we'll encourage our audience to engage with you via the comments function in YouTube and Slack.

In order to streamline the presentation process, presenters are asked to format, record, and upload their presentation about three weeks in advance of the track. We will provide guidelines and propose several methods presenters can use to easily prepare their presentation. Presenters are free to choose the presentation format and recording software they prefer, given the final product is a self-contained presentation formatted in a common video file. Practical instructions will be given later.

Call for Submissions

Submit Abstract or Session

Due to the timeline we will not ask for open session submissions. Rather, we encourage participants to submit closed sessions including 4-5 presentations.

Four submission formats and ten presentation tracks will be used to organize the session and abstract submissions. When submitting sessions or abstracts, please select one presentation format and up to three tracks that you identify as most relevant and appropriate for your session or abstract.

Presentation Formats
The ESRA2021 program includes four submission formats:

1. Closed Session: Involves the submission of a complete session with 4-5 oral presentations of approximately 15 minutes to an audience. The session description should be 150 words or fewer. The individual abstracts should be 500 words or fewer.
2. Paper Presentation: Involves a single oral presentation of approximately 15 minutes to an audience. The abstract should be 500 words or fewer.
3. Poster Presentation: Involves a visual display combined with interactive author-audience discussion.
4. Demo Presentation: Involves a software demonstration with interactive author-audience discussion.

​Early Career Awards

ESRA invites early career researchers to apply for the ESRA Early Career Award. 

Please consider volunteering for the following roles to help us in organizing the conference:

We will not have the help of a local organizing committee, so we are in need of volunteers that can make ESRA2021 into a success!

Please help us out!

When submitting an abstract or session, please consider the following roles:

1. Track chair: chair of one of the ten tracks. You will serve as the chair of an ESRA mini-conference for a day! You will communicate with the ESRA chair and session chairs and help build the program of the single day track. In addition, you will be available and manage your track on the day it is scheduled
2. Session chair: you will serve as the chair of an online session. Since we do not work with open sessions, we will assign session chairs to individual sessions (in the track that you have submitted an abstract to).
3. Session convenor: help the session chair in organizing the session, e.g. put microphones on mute, read out questions, keep track of time, etc.
4. Reviewer: review submissions to ESRA21

The ESRA2021 call for submissions will close on January 16, 2021. Individuals will be notified of an acceptance or rejection in February 2021. Tentative registration fee is 100 euro inclusive of a 2-year membership fee.

Tentative deadlines:

Sponsorship

We welcome sponsors to join us at the largest survey research conference in Europe. Please contact conference@europeansurveyresearch.org for further information. 

Join us at ESRA21

Team Vera²

Vera Toepoel (conference chair, v.toepoel@uu.nl)

Vera Lomazzi (conference vice-chair, Vera.Lomazzi@gesis.org)