Social Reporting in Europe: European Social Reporting Network

European Social Reporting Network: News

Regular social reporting is by far the most important and most successful application of social indicators and quality of life research. Social reporting aims to regularly monitor and analyse the living conditions and well-being of the population and their changes over time. Thus, social reporting generates comprehensive quantitative information and analytical knowledge on the current state and change of a single society or a group of societies like the European Union to be used for different purposes, like e.g. policy making. As a specific mode of production, dissemination, and presentation of socially relevant knowledge, social reporting today is well established within the information systems of many nation states and within international and supranational organisations like the European Union and the OECD. In Europe there are now only few countries left, which do not conduct any sort of comprehensive and regular social reporting at the national level. Some of the most well known reports, e.g. the British Social Trends, the Dutch Social and Cultural Report, and the French Donnés Sociales - are already being  published for almost fourty years. On the other hand, in some countries like Poland, Spain and Switzerland comprehensive social reports have been published more recently. 

In 2008 the informal European Social Reporting Network (ESRN) has been founded by several protagonists of social reporting from various European countries. This initiative is closely related to a series of „Social Reporting in Europe“ – conferences, which were organized by C. Collicelli (Censis) and H.-H. Noll (GESIS) in collaboration with the German-Italian-Centre Villa Vigoni since 2006 and have been funded by the European Commission, the German Science Foundation and the Villa Vigoni.

Social Reports which have been represented within this framework so far:

© GESIS Heinz-Herbert Noll 06.02.2009