Annex II: Methodology

• Author: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (EU body or agency)
• Pages: 117-125

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Annex II: Methodology

This annex summarises the implementation and data collection outcomes

of the Fundamental Rights Survey. Adetailed description of the survey

methodology and f‌ieldwork outcomes will be available in atechnical report,

which will be published in 2021. The technical report will also describe the

pre-test FRA carried out in 2015–2016 to develop the survey questionnaire,

and the pilot that took place in 2017 to help inform the f‌inal design. The

survey was conducted in 2019.

POPULATION AND REPRESENTATIVENESS

People aged 16 years and older who had their usual place of residence in

the survey country were eligible to take part in the survey. The results are

representative of this population at the EU level as well as for each individual

country included in the survey.

GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE AND SAMPLING

The survey was carried out in the 27 EU Member States, the United Kingdom

(an EU Member State at the time) and North Macedonia (the only non-EU

country with observer status at FRA when the survey was designed).

In each country, available sampling frames were assessed before the main

data collection. The frames that offered close to 100% coverage of the

population nationwide were selected for use in the survey, to draw arandom

probability sample of respondents and to contact them. These sample frames

could include sources such as population registers or registers of addresses.

In countries where such sample frames did not exist, or national authorities

did not give access to the frames, the sample was selected in amulti-stage

selection procedure, as commonly used in surveys. The addresses of the

population were enumerated (listed) in arandom selection of areas within

the countries, partly including random route methods. This method allowed

the selection of arepresentative sample of people based on the enumerated

addresses.

The survey could not access existing sample frames or use enumeration of

addresses in Germany and France. In these two countries, the data collection

used existing online panels.

In all cases, irrespective of the sample frame used, the published results have

been adjusted through weighting so that the key respondent characteristics

of the sample replicate the distribution of key population characteristics

according to off‌icial statistics (see the section on ‘Weighting’ in this annex).

FIELDWORK TEAMS

Ipsos MORI carried out the main data collection. Partner agencies implemented

the survey activities in each country. TNS Kantar implemented the feasibility

study and pre-test, which preceded the main data collection. Both contractors

were selected through open and competitive EU-wide tendering procedures.