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As you may have noted, the proposed title for our gathering - "Measuring the Emotional Capital of Europe" is a little bit catchy. Indeed. But both policy makers and economists are realizing that in order to use micro-data they have to go beyond concepts used before. Measuring trust, measuring basic safety concerns of the citizens, measuring economic confidence, social inclusion and exclusion, engagement and social capital are becoming more and more a central concern of those who are implementing policies. In order to measure progress in Europe in these areas a whole series of concepts need operationalization. In addition to renewing the traditional indicators, we are faced with sampling challenges as well. Collecting survey based measures for Europe as a whole forces us to rethink our sampling frames. If we are talking about a European community, is it not time, to talk about a European sampling frame at least, if not a European frame of mind? Seriously - we probably know enough about Small Area Estimation, and have enough information about those small areas called nation states, that we start at least a debate about a new wave of European-wide social surveys. Finally, we all know that survey research won't be the same in five years, given the disappearance of face-to-face fieldwork capacities in some European countries - not to talk about the alarmingly consistent decline of response rates both in face to face and in phone surveys. Talking about phone, we have already a number of countries in Europe, where we have to admit that there is no point to wait for a further increase in phone penetration into households, as the number of fixed lines is decreasing instead. In exchange, we do not have to worry about randomly selecting individuals within households to have a reliable individual sample - as in some countries the penetration of mobile phones among individuals are higher then the fixed line penetration among households. And we have not talked about the web yet. The point is clear. We need to think ahead about how we want to do evidence-based policy research a few years from now. So, it is urgent to talk to each other now. Our gathering in Brussels on June 2nd and 3rd serves as a spring board. Probably everybody will agree that taking stock of what the leading minds in these fields are doing and suggesting - learning from the most recent experiences will be refreshing and challenging for those who participate. We will have 3 sections. Everybody is asked to contribute in each (with the understanding that a few people have to leave earlier). The first section will take stock of the best practice of how survey-based data are being used in policy implementation, the relevant questions that should be asked, but aren't and what have we learned in the field of emotional economy. The second section will explore in some detail the issues of measuring experiences, how trust and confidence can be measured and what are the issues of sampling and analyzing experiences. Finally, the third section will deal with the frontiers of social measurement in terms of looking at survey modes, participation, coverage, non-response, and survey quality issues. Essentially, where are we in terms of trusting the "evidences" we are collecting. I would like to thank all of the contributors for their participation and wish us an enlightening conference. Robert Manchin Chairman and Managing Director The Gallup Organisation Europe May 2003
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