LCSR Signed Partnership Agreement with the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute

HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research sign partnership agreement with the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute. 

The Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI), established in October 2008 with enthusiastic support from the leadership of Qatar University, falls under the Office of the President. SESRI's mission is to provide sound and reliable data to guide policy formulation, priority-setting, and evidence-based planning in the social and economic sectors. 

The Institute's research agenda spans a wide range of substantive areas of importance to Qatari society, including labor and employment, modernization and shifts in social values, education, health, family structure, and the impact of social and traditional media. At the same time, SESRI works to place results from Qatar into a wider context through participation in regional and international survey projects, including the widely-utilized World Values Survey.

'SESRI is our partner in the World Values Survey network’, said Eduard Ponarin, Director of the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR). ‘Its employee, Darwish Al-Emadi, is a representative of the association in Qatar, while I am a representative of the association in Russia.’

SESRI and the LCSR recently developed regional units for the next wave of the World Values ​​Survey. SESRI has twice sponsored the association’s conference in Qatar, as well as many other international events, some of which have also involved employees from the laboratory (for example, the conference of the World Association for Public Opinion Research, or WAPOR). On the basis of SESRI, a regional association centre is being established to unite its representatives in the Arab world.

‘I would like to set up a similar centre at HSE that brings together academics from Eurasia, but unfortunately, current political and financial difficulties are standing in the way of this process’, Ponarin said. ‘However, our lab network has been successfully operating for four years and was an inspiration in the creation of the regional centre in Qatar. The region has a lot of interesting young people. Recently, I took part as a teacher in advanced training courses for young academics from Arab countries (from Sudan to Lebanon and Morocco to Iraq); a similar network of our laboratory could easily be set up. There are quite a few young expats from the US and Europe working at SESRI who are interested in comparative studies and international cooperation’.