The UK’s IFF Research, France’s CSA, Spain’s Advira, Germany’s Mafo-Institut, Italy’s Unicab and Austria’s IMAS (which also has offices in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary) are all part of the RedRay network.

It is billed as “a partnership of like-minded research agencies which share a common purpose to provide high-quality, multi-country research”.

The RedRay partners “are full-service agencies who know and trust each other while each having their own unique strengths and intimate knowledge of their home markets,” the firms said.

The network aims to emphasise client service, promising to provide one senior point of contact throughout international projects.

RedRay’s member companies offer expertise in qual and quant research including CATI, face-to-face and online methodologies.

Mark Speed, joint managing director of IFF, told Research the companies hope to extend the network in future, with plans to bring in an agency in the Netherlands, and possibly agencies in Latin American markets. “We wanted to start with the core and then take it from there,” said Speed.