Carta de la Presidente de WAPOR (Junio 2019)

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Dear members of WAPOR,

May 2019 has been an active month for WAPOR . We just had a wonderful annual conference in Toronto , a charming, dynamic and diverse city, where we also had very productive business meetings and Board meetings. First of all, I would like to especially thank Doug Miller, president of the WAPOR 2019 Annual Conference; Tatiana Karabchuk, Chair of the Conference Committee, and Claire Durand and Renae Reis for their enormous contribution to the organization of the conference, which has given an excellent result.

The theme of this year’s conference was » Public opinion and democracy «, and it was chosen with the conviction that democratic principles are essential for the field of research through surveys and that we must contribute our thinking to the ongoing debate on the decline of democracy in many places and its implications. It was really inspiring, and I think we all learned a lot and we were able to exchange ideas with colleagues and expand our networks of contacts.

The event was held after the AAPOR conference , which allowed to organize several activities together : an extraordinary plenary session on populism in the world with Pippa Norris, Laura Silver de Pew and Gary Langer, as well as two excellent joint sessions on the Topics of Public Opinion and Democracy and Transnational Surveys .

We believe that it was a great success reflecting the wealth of our members at a global level, with more than 120 presentations , 200 delegates present from 38 different countries covering all regions : North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. It was heartening to see such a large and diverse part of the WAPOR community so dedicated and committed to the exchange, debate and improvement of research quality standards and opinion polls.

The permanent focus of the Council in making continuous improvements to the conferences and in strengthening communication with members and the outside world was reflected in the variety of formats of the presentations we enjoyed at the event: 46 thematic panels and sessions, and various posters on issues related to democracy and public opinion in which young researchers presented their recent work. We also offered four training courses and launched an innovation workshop – with vacancies sold out during the three days of the conference – with seven round tablesthat allowed greater participation and greater exchange among peers in a range of important topics, from Democracy 3.0 to the recovery of trust in the surveys and how we can work better together in our profession.

For those of you who could not attend, you will be able to see these round tables over the next month, as they were recorded and are in the process of editing and publishing on our website. You can also access the conference program online at https://members.wapor.org/programme2019.php . Here you will see that they can access the presentations that the authors themselves loaded. If you are the author of a presentation and want to upload it to share with others, you still have time to do it: https://members.wapor.org .

Let me remind you that we are working to have a stronger presence and continuous activity in social networks , so we invite you to follow our WAPOR page on Facebook and our Twitter account . There you will find some interesting videos . I recommend you do not miss the videoby Ronald Inglehart and other videos from our colleagues who attended the conference. On the other hand, I encourage you to make publications on our social network channels, and invite colleagues and others to join the conversations open on both platforms. The objective we have is that our presence in social networks is useful for everyone.

A really remarkable moment of the conference was when the well-known Andre Blais , from the University of Montreal, participated as a keynote speaker and addressed the subject of » Citizens ‘ Electoral Democracy Assessments «, whose conclusion was that the evaluations of electoral democracy are valued positively and have not become more negative, and that partisan preferences of the privileged do not obtain a greater representation in the electoral results.

In line with our mission to strengthen relationships with other organizations, we conducted three joint WAPOR-ESOMAR-CRIC sessions on the accuracy of surveys in Canada, challenges in public opinion research and the future of public opinion polls. opinion. For more information, see the following press release .

On Monday 20 we were lucky to have the traditional awards Banquet at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, on the Toronto Islands , a beautiful and iconic place, where recognitions were awarded to various achievements and academic research. Kirils Marakovs , from the University of Essex, won the Janet A. Harkness Award for the student article for the work entitled » Does public support for the welfare state ,» Is it translated into support for the environmental state?]. Evidence from multiple levels of the European Social Survey.

The Elizabeth H. Nelson Award for the best article presented at the annual conference was for Ricardo González, Esteban Muñoz and Josefa Henriquez for their report entitled » Connecting the dots: What does personal experience with health care have to do with organizational health system preferences ?» [Join the points: what is the relationship between personal experience in medical care and the preferences of the organizational health system?]. This work represented an original and creative contribution, and the authors addressed an important issue: satisfaction with the health system based on personal experiences.

The Robert M. Worcester Prize , awarded to the best article published the previous year in International Journal of Public Opinion Research, went to Yariv Tsfati and Shira Dvir-Gvirsman for their work » Silencing Fellow Citizens: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Validation of a Scale for Measuring the Belief in the Importance of Actively Silencing Others «[Silence fellow citizens: conceptualization, measurement and validation of a scale to measure the belief in the importance of actively silencing others].

The highlight of the night was when Juan Díez Nicolás received the Helen Dinerman award for his lifetime contribution to the investigation of public opinion. Juan is one of the main founders of sociology in Spain, with an impressive number of publications and academic contributions in Europe and the world. As president, I had the honor of presenting the award to Juan, and you can find more about it in the introductory words .

On Tuesday, the 21st business meeting of the members was held to present and discuss the strategy of the Council for the coming years. For those who could not attend, the presentation of our plan and objectives is available here . 

Finally, we held a post- conference meeting with a duration of one day in which we reviewed all the actions planned for a period of two years, including our next annual Conference in Salamanca and our Latin American division . It is scheduled for September / October 2020. Exact dates will be published soon! I take this opportunity to publicly thank the Board for all its work and commitment to WAPOR.

I recommend you to be attentive to our news , because there is much more to come in the weeks and months that follow. And, please, answer our member survey when you receive it by email, as your opinions are very important to WAPOR and its future. We hope you actively participate in everything we have planned, and know that you can always write to me if you have any ideas or questions.

Best regards,

Marita Carballo
Presidente de WAPOR