ESOMAR, the global association of research professionals, shares the desire of the Russian Association for Market and Opinion Research (OIROM) to clarify the role of social and opinion research in providing decision makers with access to reliable and objective measures of public attitudes.
Social and opinion research has long played a vital role in helping governments to define and guide the implementation of social policies. Over 64 national associations for market research worldwide, including OIROM, have adopted the ICC/ESOMAR International Code on Market and Social Research in order to ensure that market, social and opinion research is carried out honestly and professionally by enforcing compliance with researchers’ ethical and professional responsibilities.
"OIROM Statement (translated from Russian)
We,
the representatives of the companies which are members of the
non-for-profit partnership - The Russian Association for Market and
Opinion Research (OIROM), hereby voice the support to a member of our
partnership, Levada Analytical Center (Levada center), and consider it
necessary to state our view on the current situation.
Over the
years, Levada center has developed a reputation for being a respectable
and independent source of information. This reputation, on its own,
provides sufficient evidence of the center's importance to the research
community and of its weighty contribution to the development of the
international collaboration of sociological organizations and
informational exchange in the fields of sociology and public opinion
research.
In our opinion, open sharing of independent poll
results, including socio-political ones, regardless of the source of
funding, is one of the indispensable democratic values of modern Russia.
This activity, first of all, pursues scientific purposes, while the
open publication of the research results serves the goal of information
sharing for the Russian society.
We cannot agree with equating
opinion polling to «political activities», including polls on
socio-political issues, and interpretations made by the research
centers. We assume that such an interpretation of opinion polling, made
by the law-enforcement authorities regarding operations of the Levada
center (and a number of other research organizations) is mainly caused
by the unclear definition of the term «political activities» in the
current legislation of the Russian Federation. As the leading
association of the Russian research industry, OIROM is ready to provide
assistance to the government authorities in development of the
legislation in its part related to our industry definition and
operations.
We also confirm our readiness to provide further
support to our colleagues in their indispensable right to professional
activities."
For the original statement please visit:
http://oirom.ru/publications.php?id=31
