In my last letter, I made a plea to all members for submitting abstracts for our Seoul Conference. We had 125 submissions then. Thanks to members’ support, at the close of submission, not long after my call, the number of submissions shot up to 379, including 330 paper, 22 panel and 27 poster proposals. You are just incredible!

As of March 21, we have 435 individual members, 10 organizational members, 32 chapter only members and 4 Friends of WAPOR. This gives us a count of 481 members in our WAPOR Community, and that means about 80% of our current members have submitted a proposal. This is awesome!

Of course, not all submissions will end up to become real presentations, but record also shows that we once had an annual conference with total participants doubling the number of presenters. Let us try to beat that record. Our Executive Council (ExCo) has recently met on March 22 and set April 1 to 28 to be the period of early bird registration [...].

National Representatives at WAPOR serve an important role within the organization promoting the mission of WAPOR in their countries and facilitating advancement of public opinion research domain worldwide. They encourage professional colleagues and students to consider WAPOR membership and participation. National Representatives participate in WAPOR’s Freedom Survey conducted every 5 years that serves as the basis for the ESOMAR-WAPOR Freedom in the World Report. National Representatives also provide a brief annual report and current advice as needed to WAPOR regarding polling-related issues within my county/region including, but not limited to, threats to the freedoms to conduct and publish opinion polls, as well as general trends in the opinion research business. 

WAPOR announces an open call for nominations for the position of WAPOR National Representatives for 2024-2025 in the following countries/ territories: Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Burundi, Congo, Croatia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Fiji, Finland, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau, Haiti, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Kosovo, Liberia, Madagascar, Maldives, Malta, Mozambique, Namibia, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Palestine, Paraguay, Slovakia, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, Trinidad, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.  

In March webinar, WAPOR is pleased to partner with our regional chapter WAPOR Latinoámerica, to present a webinar on polling in the southern cone or the Americas, with special attention on polling, recent elections, and public opinion in Argentina and Chile.  This webinar shared the expertise of our chapter members with a global audience.  

Argentina and Chile represent especially interesting cases of public opinion internationally, with significant changes in Argentina at the presidential level, and with a series of national national plebiscites and elections surrounding a potentially new constitution. Public opinion polls have been used to forecast the results of these, and polls and surveys continue to be used to measure changes in public opinion. Our panel brings together three regional experts who will talk about these issues, including questions such as: How to measure the performance of surveys in the region? What factors lead to errors and problems in surveys and how to address them? How have elites use surveys and has this use enhanced or diminished public confidence in polls.

The World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) seeks nominations for the 2022 WAPOR Helen Dinerman Award. This award, given since 1981, honors particularly significant contributions to survey research methodology. The award, presented annually to an individual or individuals, is in memory of Helen Dinerman\'s scientific achievements over three decades of public opinion research. Recent recipients of the award include Takashi Inoguchi, Mitchell Seligson, Juan Díez Nicolás, Michael Traugott, and Christian Haerpfer. Letters of nomination with a justification of the proposal should be sent to Past President Timothy Johnson (timj@uic.edu) by May 15, 2024. A committee that reflects WAPOR’s diversity will examine the proposals and make a final decision. The winner will be announced at the 77th WAPOR annual conference in Seoul, South Korea.