Pompeu Fabra University, through its RECSM research group of the Department of Political and Social Sciences, is one of the institutions participating in ESS-Innovate, a research project led by the European Social Survey (ESS ERIC) that seeks to improve the sustainability of the ESS infrastructure to fully reap the benefits of its recent transition in data collection modes.

To develop the project, the European Social Survey has received 3.2 million euros from the European Commission, within the framework of the Horizon Europe programme, which will help consolidate, modernize and ready its research infrastructure for the future. ESS-Innovate, which kicks off on 1 June 2026 and will run for two and a half years, will involve the introduction of new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and will devote efforts to expand among the European Union (EU) member and candidate countries.

ESS-Innovate will involve the introduction of new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and will devote efforts to expand among European Union (EU) member and candidate countries

myESS, a fundamental tool for the ESS developed by UPF

Diana Zavala-Rojas, deputy director of RECSM-UPF, is to lead the team at Pompeu Fabra University that will continue to develop myESS, a tool that forms an essential part of the project: it is a platform created some years ago by the UPF research group to document the life cycle of survey data, and that will play a fundamental role with ESS-Innovate.

myESS, the portal used by central and national teams of the ESS to administer and manage each round of the survey, “will provide a better overview of survey operations (integral management and logistics administration) and improve the data production life cycle, using an AI/language model to monitor task completion”, Diana Zavala-Rojas asserts.

The aim of these improvements is to render communication and information management (the exchange of data, files and documentation, etc.) safer, swifter and more efficient, improving time and effort among the survey teams at national and international level.

Diana Zavala-Rojas: “myESS will provide a better overview of survey operations and improve the data production life cycle”

ESS-Innovate, a fundamental tool to measure Europe’s most pressing challenges

myESS is one of several parts to be developed with ESS-Innovate, which aims to ensure that the ESS remains the highest standard for comparative survey research, in order to provide the data Europe needs to address the most pressing challenges and strengthen the transition in the data collection mode. ESS-Innovate will enable integrating new technologies to support national teams in implementing the survey, including new internal AI tools to facilitate their tasks. It will also strive to increase existing levels of participation and encourage EU member and candidate countries to join the survey.

Other processes and improvements that will be carried out are AI-assisted occupancy data coding, a multilingual system to automate the classification of respondents’ occupations, and survey data collection using the panel survey (CRONOS).

A collaborative project led by the EES Central Scientific Team

The EES-Innovate project includes six members of the ESS Central Scientific Team (CST): ESS ERIC headquarters, City St George’s, University of London (UK); Centerdata (Netherlands); GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (Germany); Sikt - Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (Norway); Pompeu Fabra University (Spain); and the University of Essex (UK).

There are also five beneficiaries participating in ESS-Innovate: Helvetas - Swiss development organization (Switzerland); Institute of Social Sciences (Serbia); Marie Curie-Skłodowska University (Poland); the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFIS PAN, Poland); and Tilburg University (Netherlands). The ESS-Innovate coordinator is the ESS ERIC director, professor Rory Fitzgerald.

Founded in 2001, the European Social Survey (ESS) measures the attitudes, beliefs and behavioural patterns of Europeans. Its data informs academia, education, political analysis and the media, offering the citizens’ perspective on Europe’s challenges. In the year of its 25th anniversary, the ESS faces critical areas requiring attention, and ESS-Innovate will help advance in this respect.