TNS retains quant Eurobarometer contract in €65m deal

EUROPE-- TNS has won a €65m contract from the European Commission and the European Parliament to conduct the Standard Eurobarometer public opinion study for another four years.

The agency beat off Ipsos, Gallup and Synovate to win what it says is the largest political and social research contract ever commissioned. The project represents about 50% of the work of TNS Opinion, the agency's international research coordination centre.

The Eurobarometer covers issues such as globalisation, unemployment, the environment, immigration, poverty and international affairs. It has been running since 1974, and allows researchers to track changes in public opinion over four decades. TNS has held the contract since 2004, and also held it from its inception until 1989, before losing it to Ipsos.

Fieldwork for the study is conducted entirely face-to-face, with 9,000 interviewers speaking to approximately 200,000 citizens every year in the 27 member states of the European Union, plus the three candidate countries (Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia), Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and the Turkish community in Cyprus. Interviews are conducted in 44 different languages.

As part of its pitch for the contract, TNS extolled the advantages of combining the quantitative study with the accompanying qualitative Eurobarometer study, for which it also holds the contract.

Click here to read an interview with Leendert de Voogd, head of TNS' political and social division, on what the contract win means for the agency.

Author: Robert Bain

Related links:

TNS looks to combine qual win with quant work for EU

TNS wins ‘largest ever' European qual contract from EU

Sign-up for daily