Social Reporting in Europe: European Social Reporting Network
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. The Datenreport, which is the result of a collaboration between the German Statistical Office and two research institutes (WZB, GESIS - Social Indicators Research Centre) and which is being published by the Federal Institute for Political Education (BpB) is the most well-known and important German Social Report.
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 in the years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 were organized by C. Collicelli (Censis) and H.-H. Noll (GESIS) in collaboration with the German-Italian-Centre Villa Vigoni and have been funded by the German Science Foundation and the Villa Vigoni.
Social Reports which have been represented within this framework so far:
| Barometro Social de Espana | Spain |
| Censis-Report | Italy |
| Datenreport | Germany |
| Donnés Sociales | France |
| Portrait Social | France |
| Sociaal en Cultureel Rapport | The Netherlands |
| De sociale staat van Nederland | The Netherlands |
| Social Report | Hungary |
| Social Situation Report | European Union |
| Social Trends | United Kingdom |
| Society at a Glance | OECD |
| Swiss Social Report | Switzerland |
| The Social Report Poland | Poland |
© GESIS Heinz-Herbert Noll 06.02.2009