Welcome from the Summer School Team

August 9 to 25, 2012

Apply now! Some courses are already fully booked. Early application also means more affordable accommodation - please check our application instructions.

The GESIS Summer School is a new endeavour by the GESIS Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences. We hope it will well complement the existing spring, summer and winter schools in Europe and possibly beyond. This Summer School is unique in Europe with its focus on Survey Methodology and data collection. It is the right place to go for PhD students and junior researchers planning to run their own survey, but also those who analyse secondary data, want to know more about how the data came about and how to assess their quality, and those who wish to engage in methodological research. The Summer School will be hosted in a new building at the University of Cologne.

The GESIS Summer School will not only give a broad overview of survey methods, but provide an opportunity to deeply engage with the different tasks of survey design and implementation (such as measurement, questionnaire design, sampling, nonresponse and fieldwork monitoring), with different survey modes (such as mail and web surveys), and research designs involving surveys (such as mixed methods, factorial surveys, and cross-national surveys). The courses offer engaging instruction in state-of-the-art knowledge and application oriented skills, provided by an international team of survey specialists. Our instructors come from a diverse set of countries and fields, and we welcome applicants from all countries and fields.

In the evenings, survey practitioners and leaders in the field of survey research methodology will give an insight into their individual perspectives of the survey research landscape. We have invited speakers to present three well-known cross-national surveys, the International Social Survey Programme, European Values Study and European Social Survey, as well as practitioners from the areas of sampling, fieldwork, online research and official statistics.

We are very thankful for the cooperation with and support by the Universities of Cologne and Mannheim. We also gratefully acknowledge the contributions made by our sponsors to a social and cultural programme for the weekend between the two course weeks. It is greatly important to us that participants can meet outside the seminar rooms to have a good time and find new research collaborators and, indeed, friends. We aim to provide participants with a supportive social environment, a stimulating and academically rigorous programme, and an exciting time in Cologne.

We hope you enjoy reading the programme, and hope to see you in Cologne in August 2012!

The Summer School Team:

Dr. Silke Schneider
Angelika Ruf

and

Prof. Dr. Jürgen H. P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik