WAPOR 78th Annual Conference

The 78th Annual WAPOR Conference will take place on May 12-15, 2025, in conjunction with the 80th Annual AAPOR Conference, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. This joint event is a leading forum for discussing advancements in public opinion and survey research, providing an opportunity for networking, learning about the latest research trends, and engaging with diverse experts from across the globe. The venue for the conjoined AAPOR and WAPOR conferences is the St. Louis Union Station. The call for papers for the WAPOR conference opens on October 1, 2024, encouraging submissions on a variety of topics related to public opinion and survey research. The 2025 conference will be conducted in person. The event will be led by the WAPOR Conference Chair Prof. Wolfgang Aschauer (Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria). 

Conference Theme

The Evolving Landscape of Election Polls: Challenges, Biases, and Innovations in a Polarized World  

In 2024, nearly half of the world’s population is voting in national elections in an era of rising global tensions. Many countries are facing economic threats fueled by geopolitical turmoil as well as military conflicts including the Ukraine war and the war in the Middle East. Economic, social and political turbulence is central to voter dissatisfaction, as seen in elections in all parts of the world, where ruling parties lose support, with polarization and populism is gaining ground. These developments clearly indicate that democracy and the freedoms to conduct and publish opinion polls are threatened. As political landscapes shift, pre-election polls gain more and more importance as seismographs of political developments as well as forecasts for elections. 

Polling thus plays a critical role by helping politicians gauge public opinion and enabling voters to understand which candidates or policies are gaining or losing popularity. However, these polls are not always neutral, as they may influence voter behavior, leading to phenomena such as the “bandwagon effect” (where voters support a perceived winning candidate) or the “boomerang effect” (where low polling numbers lead to a negative evaluation of a party). Additionally, polling methods such as telephone interviews and online surveys, are having mixed results in predicting election outcomes. Declining response rates and misrepresentation of sample demographics have been identified as key issues. Social-desirability bias, where respondents withhold true opinions about controversial candidates, further complicates predictions.

Alternative approaches which gain importance due to new technological possibilities of data collection, like monitoring social networks, especially X (formerly Twitter), offer potential solutions. However, the debate over whether social networks can reliably infer political opinions remains open. Online platforms are susceptible to false data from bots, trolls, and misinformation campaigns, making it difficult to distinguish genuine opinions. Moreover, while social networks overcome low response rates, they introduce a misrepresentation bias, as users on these platforms may not represent the broader population.

We might assume that these levels of bias are even more pronounced in illiberal political regimes. Research has demonstrated that in such contexts, voters often misreport their political preferences to pollsters, fearing that their answers may be traced back to them by the regime. The misreporting is especially prevalent when surveys are conducted immediately before elections, a period of heightened political tension.

For our community of world-wide public opinion researchers, it is more than ever important to enable high-quality polls because they provide accurate insights into voter sentiment and the likely outcome of elections. Reliable polls, as a unique voice of the people, help ensure informed decision-making, enable effective campaign strategies, and uphold the integrity of the democratic process by highlighting shifts in public opinion. In an era of increasing political polarization and misinformation, robust polling is essential for reflecting true voter intentions and safeguarding the fairness and transparency of elections.

For WAPOR 2025 it is thus time to reflect on all sorts of polls and surveys which are conducted over the long run or precisely in this unique year for democracy in 2024. We aim for exploring the crucial role that opinion polls play in elections, examining both their value and their limitations. Through discussions on the technical challenges of polling, and their broader impact on political campaigns and voter behavior, we aim to foster a deeper understanding of the various approaches to opinion polling in a global context.

Topics that are in the foreground of this conference are:

• Levels of bias affecting the accuracy of traditional polling methods
• Social Networks and alternative polling methods using Computational Social Science
• The impact of Electoral Cycles and Political Campaigns on Polling
• Polling as a Tool for Manipulation
• Fears of Repercussions and Misreporting (especially in illiberal regimes)
• The Complexity of Polling in high, middle and low income countries

Further topics which address the conference topics from a broader societal perspective are also welcome such as:

• Freedom to conduct and publish public opinion research
• Public opinion and conflict resolution
• Political behavior, participation, and culture in survey research
• Studies on political polarization and current risks of democracy (e.g. the surge of the far right, authoritarianism, value changes pointing to a conservative backlash)
• Geopolitical tensions and the rise of defense and security

As always, we also appreciate fundamental research focusing on our methodological principles such as:

• Methodological challenges and improvements in the areas of sampling, survey design, survey response and non-response as well as measurement errors
• Panel studies, longitudinal surveys and established survey programs nationally monitoring public opinion
• Comparative research as well as international and global survey projects
• Cross-cultural concerns in data collection and measurement issues
• Data archiving for the advancement of humanity
• News, media, journalism, and public opinion
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) challenges in public opinion research and survey methods
• Big data, sentiment analysis and machine learning
• Alternative methods to measure public opinion

Abstracts Submission

​​Abstracts Submission Guidelines

• Proposals for the conference should be submitted electronically by January 15, 2025. Only proposals submitted through the conference platform will be considered: https://access.wapor.org/ 
• WAPOR 2025 conference will be held in person; both presenters, co-authors (if attending), and audience are required to attend in person.
• The following types of submissions are accepted: research papers in oral format; poster presentations in oral format (authors are required to bring a printed poster themselves); pre-organized panel proposals. Paper and poster presentations can have up to 10 co-authors; pre-organized panels need to have a chair and can include 4-5 papers.
• Individual papers will be organized in panels with 4-5 presenters per panel. All poster presentations will take place at the same time, in a format of a networking-style parallel session. Posters can be exhibited at the conference venue during the whole conference duration.
• In case of proposals featuring multiple co-authors, only the main author (or the presenter) should submit the paper proposal (one time). Co-authors (if any) should be listed during the abstract submission, but they should not submit the same abstract again.
• Pre-organized panels should comprise several submissions: first, the convener/chair needs to submit a panel proposal, then every presenter needs to submit their abstract individually, indicating the ID number of the panel where the abstract belongs. All-male panel proposals are not permitted.
• To maximize participation in the WAPOR conference, the number of times any individual can appear as speaker in the final program is limited: any individual can present only one paper. Should you appear as a co-author in multiple papers, please make sure that other co-authors will attend the conference to present your joint research. Alternatively, the second paper can be submitted as a poster.
• All abstracts should not exceed 500 words. All submissions must be in English, and all accepted works are to be presented in English.
• Full papers (or presentations) in PDF format will need to be uploaded to the conference platform by April 30, 2025.

Should you have any questions or face any technical issues during the submission, please, contact waporoffice@gmail.com.

Recommendations for preparing a conference abstract

When crafting a good conference paper abstract, focus on conciseness, clarity, and providing the key elements that communicate the essence of your research. Here are the crucial elements to include:  

1. Purpose/Objective: Clearly state the research question, problem, or goal of the study. This is the “why” behind your research and what you aim to achieve.
2. Context/Background: Briefly explain the broader context or background of your study. This helps set the stage and demonstrates the relevance of your work.
3. Methodology/Approach: Outline the methods or theoretical framework used in your research. Be concise but clear about how you conducted the research or analysis.
4. Data (if relevant): Please describe the source data you will be using, including the type of data, the source, and a brief description of the methods used to collect the data if relevant. Key elements for a survey typically include the target population, sample size, mode, sampling approach, dates of data collection, and other relevant factors that would be helpful to reviewers.
5. Analysis: Be clear about the concepts or variables you will be analyzing and how you will approach the analysis or data presentation.
6. Main Findings/Results: Summarize the key findings or anticipated results of your research. Focus on the most significant contributions your study makes.
7. Conclusion/Implications: Highlight the implications of your findings. Explain the relevance and potential impact of your research for the field or how it contributes to ongoing debates.

Available Paper Awards

WAPOR awards and prizes are intended to recognize significant accomplishments in the Public Opinion field. Specifically, we encourage future advancements through student awards and yearly accomplishments for exemplary papers and presentations at the annual conference. You can find out more about these prizes HERE. If required, full papers must be submitted electronically to waporoffice@gmail.com by the deadline of March 30, 2025 (by 11:59 pm ET).

Sponsorship

WAPOR 78th annual conference is a great opportunity to showcase your products and services to key decision makers in the international survey and public opinion industry. It also provides the opportunity to meet colleagues, share the latest best practices, and promote survey innovation throughout the world. It’s also a fantastic opportunity for us, as an organization, to show our members which organizations support the mission and ideals of WAPOR. Take a moment to look at this year’s sponsorship prospect (Sponsorship prospect 2025). More information on the available sponsorship packages, exhibition and underwriting opportunities is available at the WAPOR website. If you have an idea for an exclusive underwriting opportunity that is not listed, please contact WAPOR Executive Director Kseniya Kizilova at waporoffice@gmail.com.

WAPOR Conference Committee 2025

Chair: Wolfgang Aschauer, Paris Lodron University Salzburg, Austria

Members:

• Jonathan Evans, Pew Research, USA
• Chase Harrison, Harvard University, USA
• Timothy Johnson, NORC at the University of Chicago, USA
• Olga Kamenchuk, Northwestern University, USA
• Henning Silber, GESIS, Germany

Queries About the Conference