Long-established Research on Finns

Mari Kleemola    
10.11.2003

Gallup Finland has been collecting data of Finnish life and opinions for nearly sixty years. The company has recently been acquired by Taylor Nelson Sofres (TSN), an international chain which specializes in marketing and opinion research. The new official name is TSN Gallup Ltd /Suomen Gallup Group.

Media research

Suomen Gallup Group produces barometers, opinion polls for the media, attitude surveys and research on organizations and political parties.
- Associations and other non-governmental organizations and the public sector use us most. The opinions polls collected for the media are fewer by far in numbers but provide visibility for us, says Business Unit Director Juhani Pehkonen.

Many surveys conducted by Suomen Gallup Group could be classified as belonging to the field of social sciences. However, only a small part of them are academic studies.
- We have conducted some 'semi-academic' studies and are co-operating with STAKES (National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health). We carry out the data collection of the Finnish material for Eurobarometers, Flash Eurobarometers and World Values Surveys. This kind of work demands meticulousness and the emphasis is on field work, Pehkonen explains.

Different needs, different methods

Gallup's data collection methods are decided on the basis of the client's wishes, schedule and the goal of the research. The data can be collected with telephone or face-to-face interviews or with the help of GallupChannel.

Suomen Gallup Group and FSD have been co-operating ever since FSD began its operations. Data sets deposited by Gallup at FSD include Finnish Voter Barometers, Finnish Local Government Barometers and data sets collected for the Planning Commission for Defence Information and the Research Institute of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Pehkonen thinks it is important to archive scientific survey data.
- The fact that key data are available in one organisation makes life easier both for researchers and data producers, he points out.

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