Sharing from WAPOR Leaders (August 2023)

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Note: This document was translated from English into many different languages. In case of any discrepancy or inconsistency between the English version and any other translation, the English version shall always prevail.

There is exactly one month to go before we meet in Salzburg. I have invited Wolfgang Aschauer, the Local Chair of our Annual Conference to greet all of us here, along with sharings from our Chair of Professional Standards Committee Ignacio Zuasnabar and our Chair of Education Committee Claire Durand. Here are the short versions. Please read their long versions, if any, appended at the end.

• Wolfgang[i]: I am the local Conference Chair of this year’s WAPOR Conference. The conference will take place between September 19 and 22 in the famous, beautiful city of Salzburg which has a rich cultural heritage and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. We are doing our best to provide an attractive social program. We will start on Tuesday with the Welcome Reception at the rooftop terrace of our conference venue. You will have the possibility to book cheap guided city tours and boat trips after intensive conference days in the evening and wonderful excursions on Saturday after the conference. We even arranged the conference banquet directly at Fortress Hohensalzburg, the landmark of our city. We are all looking forward to have our WAPOR community here in Salzburg and to engage in global exchange on public opinion research.
• Ignacio: I am honored to serve as Chair of the Professional Standards Committee since January 2023. One of the main objectives of this Committee is to deepen knowledge about the situation of our industry around the world. We are developing a “Global Annual Report on the Status of Opinion Polling” based on information to be gathered by our National Representatives. We expect this report to give us an account of the current health, and main challenges of our profession. This report will contain information not only on freedom to publish surveys, but also on methodological issues. We are discussing the survey instrument and the report format. We hope to have the first survey conducted before the end of this year, and published at the beginning of 2024. I hope many of you can contribute to this project!
• Claire[ii]: The Education Committee started to organize webinars under the leadership of Michael Traugott, and soon settled on the formula of “free seminars, open to all”. This year, we have six very active and efficient new members. We already had three webinars in the Spring of 2023, and many more have been planned. After the next conference, I will be replaced as chair by Chase Harrison, until a chair is elected in 2024 in accordance with our new constitution. I will remain on the committee for some time. It has been my pleasure contributing to WAPOR after my mandate as president. I am very happy with where WAPOR is heading. It is more active, more present in all parts of the world, more inclusive. This is where we all want WAPOR to be as an international organization.

You probably know that our revised Constitution was adopted by the Council on August 3, and all changes will be implemented by the time when Council meets again in Salzburg, when nominations for many elected posts will be open. Other than that, many important changes will also be made at our Regional Chapter level, which will give us stronger unity in diversity. These include, among others, allowing our Chapters to set their own membership fees and structures, manage their own accounts if they so prefer, and our WAPOR Secretariat no longer withholding 50% of Chapter membership fees in exchange for administrative support. Moreover, all WAPOR Chapter members, whether they opt for overlap membership or not, will be automatically enlisted in our new Listserv service in order be engaged in all professional discussions. All Chapter members, however, like all WAPOR members, must also adopt the WAPOR Code of Professional Ethics and Practices as a condition of membership.

Our September Annual Conference is therefore an important time for our WAPOR Community to consolidate ourselves at all levels: membership and leadership, global and regional, conceptual and organizational, intellectual and professional, plus a lot more. I borrow the words of Wolfgang, “Salzburg… has a rich cultural heritage and is a UNESCO World Heritage site… looking forward to have our WAPOR community… engage in global exchange on public opinion research.”

Humbly yours,

Robert Chung

WAPOR President

[i] Wolfgang Aschauer: I am the local Conference Chair of this year´s WAPOR Conference. The conference will take place between September 19 and 22 in the famous, beautiful city of Salzburg which has a rich cultural heritage and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Already at this stage of organizing I want to thank the whole conference committee and Executive Director Kseniya Kizilova in particular for their enthusiasm to make our conference a success. We received an extraordinary high number of high-quality submissions, we have already a broad range of pre-organized panels and we have selected three well-known keynote speakers addressing the conference topic from different angles in important plenary events. Here in Salzburg, together with my assistants, we are also doing our best to provide an attractive social program. We will start on Tuesday with the Welcome Reception at the rooftop terrace of our conference venue. You will have the possibility to book cheap guided city tours and boat trips after intensive conference days in the evening and wonderful excursions on Saturday after the conference. We even arranged the conference banquet (included in the registration fee) directly at Fortress Hohensalzburg, the landmark of our city. We are all looking forward to have our WAPOR community here in Salzburg and to engage in global exchange on public opinion research.

[ii] Claire Durand: The education committee started to organize webinars, slowly but surely, during the pandemic under the leadership of Michael Traugott. We started to plan webinars and we soon noticed that the formula we had chosen – free seminars, open to all – was indeed very popular. Interestingly, the people we contacted were all very happy to accept our invitation and contribute. This year, following the last Conference and a call for interest, the committee could count on six new members from different regions, and this enabled us to be more efficient in planning webinars ahead of time and diversifying the contributions. We had three webinars in the Spring of 2023, and we already have three planned for next fall, with topics like hard to sample populations, spatial sampling, and visualizing data. We already have a few topics planned for 2024. In short, the Education Committee is active and has lots of ideas for the webinars to come. After the next conference, I will be replaced as Chair of Education Committee by Chase Harrison, until a chair is elected in the Fall of 2024 in accordance with our new constitution. I will remain on the committee for some time. It has been a pleasure for me to go on contributing to WAPOR after my mandate as president. I am very happy with where WAPOR is heading. It is more active, more present in all parts of the world, more inclusive. This is where we all want WAPOR to be as an international organization.