How it all began ....

The consultation process for designing the content of the study began with a meeting on June 19, 2007 at the Royal Statistical Society (RSS). Leading experts in the field met to discuss which questions and topics Understanding Society should cover.

Consultation over the ethnicity strand, which cuts across all topic areas, was organised by the ethnicity advisory committee. Details of this can be found here.  

In addition, the users of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) were also consulted, since the BHPS sample is incorporated into the Understanding Society sample from Round 2 of interviews. This consultation took place at the BHPS Users Group meeting held on May 2, 2008 at the Royal Statistical Society.

The first phase of the consultation process concluded with a major conference and the publication of the Proposal for Understanding Society topic content. This was followed by a consultation process for the second round and following waves.