The Public Opinion Research Centre (CVVM) is a research department of the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy od Sciences. Its history dates back to 1946, when the Czechoslovak Public Opinion Research Institute began operating as part of the Ministry of Information. The current Centre was established in 2001 by transferring its predecessor (IVVM) from the Czech Statistical Office to the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Incorporation into a scientific institution guarantees a high quality professional background and credit of the workplace; as part of the academic environment, the CVVM must meet all the requirements and thus achieve the highest professional level.
SIMAR
The CVVM is an academic partner of SIMAR and adheres to all its standards. SIMAR is a non-profit organisation that has been supporting, promoting and enriching market research, public opinion research, sociological research and the field of data analytics since 1994.
Our Company Panel
The Our Society Panel is a panel of respondents aged 15 years and older built and maintained by the CVVM for conducting sociological quantitative research and public opinion surveys using the CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing) method. The panel is addressed to people at randomly drawn addresses (we use a so-called stratified multi-stage sampling). This method of reaching respondents makes the Our Society panel an exceptional project, because most other online panels are accessed by respondents based on their interest and not based on random selection.
The methodology of panel construction and maintenance is comparable to that of similar foreign probabilistic online panels and respects the rules and principles of AAPOR, ESOMAR/WAPOR and SIMAR, placing us among the international leaders of institutions of similar focus.
Around twelve surveys per year are conducted on the Our Society panel. The omnibus format of the questionnaire allows us to cover a large range of topics and therefore political, economic and other general societal issues are regularly included in the survey. Repeated questions are used to track the development of the phenomena under investigation, as well as new topics responding to current events.
Thanks to its long-term and continuous character, this scientific project of public opinion research is unique in the Czech Republic and its outputs are valuable material regularly used especially by the professional public, students or journalists.
In addition to the regular surveys of the Our Society project, the CVVM conducts special research for other departments of the Institute of Sociology of the CAS and for external clients from state administration institutions or research organisations and universities, including foreign ones.
Panel study of Ukrainians who left the Czech Republic as a result of the war
In addition to the Our Society panel, CVVM is conducting a panel study of Ukrainians who moved to the Czech Republic as a result of the war, a survey of Ukrainian citizens currently residing in the Czech Republic who have given prior consent to participate in public opinion research.
Thanks to the Centre's regular surveys, academics, researchers, civil servants and policymakers can use accurate data to monitor social changes and attitudes of Ukrainian refugees and better understand their situation. Up-to-date and reliable information on the needs and problems of Ukrainians who have found themselves in the Czech Republic because of the war will help both state authorities in their decision-making and ordinary Czech citizens who want to better understand the moods and needs of Ukrainians.
For the public
The CVVM regularly presents its work through press releases. Regular media appearances are also part of its popularisation activities. An archive containing press releases from 1990 onwards is available to the general public. An archive of the final research reports of the Public Opinion Research Institute (and its successor, the IVVM) from the late 1960s to 1999 has also been produced as part of one of the projects. Copies are publicly available in the library of the Institute of Sociology of the CAS, the library of the Academy of Sciences and the National Library. The data files with the research results are transferred to the Czech Social Science Data Archive, which makes them available for non-commercial purposes.
The CVVM is composed of 14 permanent employees whose specialisations fully cover the needs of conducting complete sociological research. The members of the department deal with theoretical and methodological issues related to public opinion and its research in general, and within their specialisations individual professional and scientific staff deal with public opinion as a social phenomenon. In addition to other professional activities, they also lecture at the Faculty of Arts or the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University.
