European programs and surveys

ESS - European Social Survey
The European Social Survey (the ESS) is an academically-driven social survey designed to chart and explain the interaction between Europe’s changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of its diverse populations. The survey covers over 20 nations; it is funded by the European Commission and European Science Foundation. It has received in 2005 the EU Descartes Prize (further information).

EVS - European Values Studies
Large-scale, cross-national, and longitudinal survey research program on basic human values, initiated by the European Value Systems Study Group (EVSSG) in the late 1970s and now carried on in the setting of a foundation, using the (abbreviated) name of the group: European Values Study (EVS).

Eurobarometer
Monitoring the public opinion in the European Union is the mission of the Standard Eurobarometer surveys, conducted on behalf of the European Commission since the early seventies at least twice a year in all member states.

ISSP - International Social Survey Programme
The data resulting from this survey are managed by the GESIS (German Social Sciences Services).

Finding the data:

Most of the data of these surveys (ISSP, EVS, Eurobarometer) is available on the ZACAT website: Central Archive’s study catalogue of the University of Köln, a social sciences data portal allowing to search for, browse, analyse and download social science survey data.

The website of Gesis (Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) provides information and results of the European surveys.

The website of the Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe (SMRE) aims at providing detailed statistics and consolidated "best data" on religious affiliation for European countries and regions including the EU.

Information can also be found on the Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) website.