- Welcome
- Important notice
- About the author
- About this site
- Site guide + Search box
- Dedications
- Acknowledgments
- My personal pantheon (of the great and the good in survey research)
- Recent and planned activities
- Textbooks for Research Methods and Data Analysis
- 1: Survey Analysis Workshop (SPSS)
- 1a: Statistical concepts and methods
- 1b: Teaching with Survey Data
- 1c: Developing research projects using survey data
- 1d: Workshop and presentations for ASSESS (SPSS users in Europe)
- 2: Survey Research Practice
- 2a: Survey Research Methodology, Practice and Training
- 2b: Major survey series
- 3: Subjective Social Indicators (Quality of Life)
- 4: Survey Unit, Social Science Research Council (UK)
- 5a: Polytechnic of North London (1976-1992)
- 5b: Survey Research Unit (1978-1992)
- Village life in Normandy
- Contact
Survey Unit
Social Science Research Council
[Page last updated 6 April 2015]
The report SSRC/ESRC: the first 40 years boasts:
‘…by early 1970 the first of the SSRC’s Units were established – a move which was to produce some of the Council’s greatest impacts and successes over the next forty years.’
The British Election Study Programme, University of Essex (1963)
SSRC/ESRC Data Archive, University of Essex (1967)
SSRC Survey Unit (1970)
The Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick (1970)
The Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford (1972)
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, University of Cambridge (1974)
All the above units warrant full entries, except the Survey Unit, which gets a single line:
" . . and the Survey Unit which ran the Nuffield Summer School in survey methods under Dr Mark Abrams "
This page hopefully rectifies that serious (and possibly intentional) omission.
In April 1970 the then Social Science Research Council (SSRC) set up its Survey Unit with the late Dr Mark Abrams as (part-time) Director. The Unit was “attached to, but not of, the LSE” for computing and sundry other purposes. Its brief was to offer advice and assistance in survey methods to academics and others doing surveys on public funds. As well as conducting surveys for SSRC and its committees, it also had a watching brief on computing in the social sciences and an internal research programme to develop survey measures of Quality of Life. Amid great controversy, SSRC closed the unit in 1976 and all staff were made redundant.
See also ESRC Green Paper on Data Policy and Archiving
The report SSRC/ESRC: the first 40 years boasts:
‘…by early 1970 the first of the SSRC’s Units were established – a move which was to produce some of the Council’s greatest impacts and successes over the next forty years.’
The British Election Study Programme, University of Essex (1963)
SSRC/ESRC Data Archive, University of Essex (1967)
SSRC Survey Unit (1970)
The Industrial Relations Research Unit, University of Warwick (1970)
The Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford (1972)
Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, University of Cambridge (1974)
All the above units warrant full entries, except the Survey Unit, which gets a single line:
" . . and the Survey Unit which ran the Nuffield Summer School in survey methods under Dr Mark Abrams "
This page hopefully rectifies that serious (and possibly intentional) omission.
In April 1970 the then Social Science Research Council (SSRC) set up its Survey Unit with the late Dr Mark Abrams as (part-time) Director. The Unit was “attached to, but not of, the LSE” for computing and sundry other purposes. Its brief was to offer advice and assistance in survey methods to academics and others doing surveys on public funds. As well as conducting surveys for SSRC and its committees, it also had a watching brief on computing in the social sciences and an internal research programme to develop survey measures of Quality of Life. Amid great controversy, SSRC closed the unit in 1976 and all staff were made redundant.
See also ESRC Green Paper on Data Policy and Archiving
Surveys
The unit conducted surveys for Council and other surveys as part of its internal research programme
Publications
The unit published various reports, some of which are downloadable from this site.
Courses, Conferences and Seminars
The unit offered a residential summer school on survey methods and also organised seminars and conferences relating to its research programme on Quality of Life (QoL) indicators, the relationship of survey research to social theory and the development of computing in the social sciences