For the first time since resuming its membership of the International Social Survey Programme, Ukraine took part in the annual ISSP General Meeting, held this year in Prague

At the end of April, in Prague, Czech Republic, the General Meeting of the national coordinators of one of the world's largest comparative sociological projects — the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) — took place. This year representatives of 33 of the 45 participating countries took part in the meeting.

As is known, in 2025 Ukraine resumed its membership of the ISSP after a long break; it is represented there by a partnership of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine and Rating Group. More about the ISSP Ukraine project can be found on the website: https://issp.org.ua/

During the first year after the official status was regained, two surveys have already been carried out — under the modules “Digital Societies” (May 2025) and “Work Orientations” (April 2026). International releases of the results are planned for the summer of 2026 and 2027 respectively.

This was Ukraine's first appearance at an ISSP General Meeting since it resumed membership. The organisers and the representatives of the national teams gave Ukraine a warm welcome as a new member of the project.

Ukraine's delegates this year were Ihor Tyshchenko and Yevhen Krotevych (Rating Group) and Yelena Holi (Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine), who took an active part in all the activities of the meeting.

The General Meeting lasted four days and was packed with intensive work. During the sessions the participants discussed, refined and agreed the questionnaires of the forthcoming modules for the next two years — ISSP 2027 “Social Networks and Social Resources” and ISSP 2028 “Religion”. In addition, the theme of the ISSP 2029 module was determined — “Social Inequality”; this maintains the tradition of repeating particular thematic modules once every 10 years. It is worth noting that in decision-making each participating country has one vote and votes on every item on the agenda.

Ukraine's delegates took an active part in all the activities of the meeting and were able to discuss directly with colleagues the methodological questions that matter for carrying out the ISSP in Ukraine. In particular, the Ukrainian team held a substantive meeting with the members of the Methodological Committee — the well-known American sociologists Tom Smith and René Bautista. The central theme of the conversation was the specifics of the approach to data collection in Ukraine proposed by Rating Group. As a result of the meeting, the parties agreed on closer cooperation, in particular on the further discussion of the experimental methodology and on AI innovations in coding occupational affiliation according to the ISCO classification.

Taking part in the General Meeting gave the Ukrainian team an opportunity to join the work of the international research community, to present Ukrainian experience and to widen professional contacts within the ISSP.

We also invite you to visit the Rating Group website and read our partners' press release about this event: https://www.ratinggroup.ua/news