International Social Research

Purpose + Mission 

We are a team specialised in international, multi-country research and evaluation across public policy and sustainable development areas. We work with a range of international organisations, including the UN bodies, EU agencies, international financial institutions, international development departments/donors, foundations, NGOs and others.

Approach 

We help our clients understand complex international issues of the day and untangle and measure effects of policies, projects and programmes. Our experienced central team, together with a strong network of local Ipsos partners, is dedicated to delivering the evidence needed to improve our clients’ policies and programmes effectively and reliably, even in challenging contexts.

We support our clients through each stage of the research process: from initial scoping and development of research materials through to data collection, reporting, analysis, and communicating learnings. We excel in both traditional research methodologies – including complex, large-scale surveys conducted to the highest level of rigour, in-depth interviews and focus groups – and in newer and emerging techniques, such as behavioural science and text analytics.

Integrated solutions 

Our team includes specialists in statistics, research methods, monitoring and evaluation and draw on both internal and external experts for specific policy expertise as needed.
Our current focus areas include:

• Global health
• Children, education, young people
• Vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations (such as immigrants, Roma, victims of violence, and rural communities)
• Gender 
• Humanitarian issues
• Environment and climate change

Our work is global, and we collaborate closely with our strong network of local teams and experts across the world to make sure our research is culturally appropriate and reflects the realities of the countries we work in.

Senior leadership team 

Sara Grant-Vest, Director, Ipsos  Sara has been leading the International Social Research team since its inception over a decade ago. During that time she has delivered studies in over 60 countries across the world. Sara has particular expertise on research relating to human rights and hate crime having led a number of surveys with minority or vulnerable groups on their experiences of discrimination and violence. She provides leadership for a team of international researchers and coordinators based in London.

Jessica Bruce, Head of the Sustainable Development Research Centre, Ipsos  Jessica is the Head of the Sustainable Development Research Centre which works with Ipsos offices globally to deliver research and evaluations on issues across the SDG agenda. She has extensive experience carrying out evaluations, research, and economic analysis and delivering projects for public and private sector clients across the globe on a variety of international development subjects.

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Client case studies

• Disrupting Harm - a multi-country household survey with children and their parents/guardians on online child sexual exploitation and abuse for UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti.
• Global Science Partnership - an international deliberative public engagement programme for the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.
• EU-wide surveys on immigrants and descendants of immigrants for the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. 
• European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) - a large-scale probability-based multi-country survey for Eurofound.
• Life in Transition Survey (LiTS) - a large-scale random probability, face-to-face survey for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in collaboration with the World Bank.
• ‘CoMix’ online survey on people’s contact patterns during COVID-19 pandemic for the University of Hasselt, London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine (LSHTM) and other academic and public health partners.

Insights

International Women’s Day. We mark the International Women’s Day every year with the publication of annual survey results measuring the global attitudes on gender equality. The latest findings can be found here. At the same time, we take the opportunity to publicise other recent work we have carried out focused on women and their experiences, as well as mark the day internally and externally through events and other activities.

World Refugee Day is another important event we celebrate every year. We carry out an annual survey on attitudes towards refugees, contextualise the findings through expert commentary and publicise the findings internally and externally. Results from the latest wave can be found here.