Frequently asked questions

A panel is a fixed group of people who fill out questionnaires on various topics on a regular basis.

The Social Study was created together by the eleven Belgian universities. Statbel provides a sample of randomly selected Belgians who are contacted and asked to participate in the panel. The research agency Ipsos/MCM takes care of the initial contacts with the selected individuals and asks them to participate in The Social Study. From the moment a person has confirmed their participation, they will only have contact with staff members of The Social Study. These staff members are affiliated to one of the Belgian universities.

The Social Study is an initiative involving all Belgian universities and is funded by: the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS), the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), and Statistics Flanders.

TSS operates on the lawful bases of being a task in the public interest and necessary for research and archiving purposes, as outlined in both the General Data Protection Regulation and the Act on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data. Upon registration, panel members have also provided their ethical consent to become part of the panel. To ensure that all ethical standards are met, researchers must have their proposed study approved by the ethical review board of their institution, and provide a certificate of approval during submission. We offer a template containing all necessary ethical information to streamline this process for researchers. All ethical information regarding the TSS panel can be found here. The data protection statement for panel members can be found here. 

The panel members are individuals of minimum 16 years old, living in private households in Belgium and able to complete questionnaires in Dutch or French.
Excluded from participation are individuals living in collective households such as retirement homes or student homes, and persons resident in the German-speaking community. The panel members were randomly selected from the national register.

To obtain the random sample, we employed a stratified, two-stage cluster design where boroughs (NIS6) were the primary sampling units, and residents the secondary sampling units.
At the first stage, 800 sampling points were randomly selected by a systematic random sampling procedure with replacement clustered within boroughs, explicitly stratified by regions and provinces and implicitly stratified by target population size. Sampling points corresponded to a fixed number of expected panel members (n = 5) and a varying number of gross sample persons, depending on expected response rates.
At the second stage, persons within the selected boroughs were randomly selected from the Belgian National Register by Statistics Belgium (Statbel). This was done using a systematic random sampling procedure without replacement and with equal inclusion probabilities, while implicitly stratified by age and sex.
For a more detailed overview of the sampling, please consult the sampling page.

All sample persons get a postal invitation which includes a 5 euro unconditional incentive (gift voucher), an invitation letter, info brochure and GDPR brochure. The recruitment questionnaire can be filled out online via an url link or QR code mentioned in the invitation letter. Individuals are invited to join TSS by completing a recruitment questionnaire which collects basic data for non-response analysis and shows possible panel members what kind of questions to expect when they join the panel. The recruitment is organized in 2 phases:

Phase 1: push-to-web phase via personal URL link and QR code in postal letter
Phase 2: face-to-face phase via an interviewer from a survey organization. More information on the recruitment of panel members can be found on the recruitment page. 

Yes, panel members receive 8 euros on their bank account for every questionnaire that they complete before the deadline.

The Social Study panel is designed to be representative of persons aged 16 and over, resident within private households in Belgium, regardless of their nationality or citizenship. The entire panel is representative of the Belgian population according to age and sex. Subsamples of the Flemish, Walloon of Brussels Capital Region are also representative according to age and sex. More information on sampling can be found on the sampling page. 

Panel members can participate online via an online personal profile. Panel members who do not have the possibility to participate online can participate offline via a paper-and-pencil survey sent by postal mail.

Online panel members are invited via e-mail containing a link to the available survey. Offline panel members are invited via postal letter including a paper survey.

Panel members are invited six to ten times per year to fill out a short questionnaire (around 15 minutes each).

Proposals can be submitted by researchers at universities, non-commercial research institutes and governments. We welcome proposals from various disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. TSS does not accept commercial projects.

If you have any additional questions regarding the submission of an application, please contact surveymanagement@thesocialstudy.be. For further information related to the questionnaire module funded by Statistics Flanders, the contact person is: ann.carton@vlaanderen.be.

All proposals can be submitted throughout the year, there is no specific deadline.

The procedure to apply for survey time with the panel consists of two stages. The first stage requires submission of a brief pre-registration application, which will be internally reviewed by TSS to verify compliance with formal criteria. In case of a positive outcome, you will be asked to submit a substantive application in the second stage. Upon submission, the substantive application will undergo an initial review to verify compliance with formal criteria. If the application is in line with the required standards, it will proceed for further evaluation of its scientific components. This entire procedure takes roughly 4 months. More information on the procedure can be found on the submission procedure page.

TSS Scientific Committee assesses the questionnaire proposals based on the following criteria:

1. Ethics and sustainability of the panel
Does the survey comply with TSS’s ethical standards? Does it potentially affect the trust relationship between the panel members and TSS or engender an excessive attrition (for instance, in terms of themes handled and kind of questions)?

2. Feasibility
Is the design of the survey realistic in terms of size and composition of the panel? Can the suggested questions be implemented in the (sub)sample asked by applicants (online and/or offline modes, which language group(s))?

3. Quality of the questionnaire (at the substantive submission stage)
Are the research constructs well defined and operationalized? Is the wording of the questions and of instructions adequate? Is the question order relevant?

Yes, this is possible. We ask to indicate the funding source in the submission. The Social Study is an initiative involving all Belgian universities and is funded by: the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS), the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), and Statistics Flanders.

We welcome proposals in English because our review procedure may involve international reviewers.

Questionnaires must be submitted in English, Dutch and French if the entire population sample is used. If a questionnaire is only fielded in a certain language, questionnaires must be submitted in that language (Dutch or French) and English. Translation and translation costs are the responsibility of those submitting the proposal.  TSS provides researchers with guidelines and practical help as to how to adequately translate survey instruments.

During the submission procedure of commissioned surveys, TSS requires that the researchers provide an ethical certificate approved by the ethical review board of their home research institution, specifying the potential risks of their research and how they handle them. TSS might ask for changes or even reject survey proposals that create excessive and/or unjustified risks for the panel. We offer a template containing all necessary ethical information to streamline this process for researchers.

When you apply for survey time with the panel, you can indicate your desired timing for fieldwork. If you indicate that the timing of the fieldwork is strict, you can provide us with some information about your desired time for the fieldwork, to which event or project it is linked, etc. We try our best to accomodate with your preferences to the extent possible.  

The procedure to apply for survey time with the panel consist of two stages. First, submit a pre-registration application for internal review by TSS to confirm compliance with formal criteria. If approved, you’ll receive a project ID and proceed to the second stage, where you’ll submit a substantive application. This application will also be checked for formal criteria compliance, and if successful, it will undergo scientific evaluation.
If revisions are needed, you’ll receive specific feedback and must submit a revised version. Upon final approval without revisions, you’ll receive details on implementation, costs, and a contract. All information regarding the submission procedure can be found here. 

When your initial proposal is internally reviewed and approved by TSS, you’ll receive a project ID and proceed to the second stage where you’ll submit a substantive application. This application will also be checked for formal criteria compliance, and if successful, it will undergo scientific evaluation.
If revisions are needed, you’ll receive specific feedback and must submit a revised version. Upon final approval without revisions, you’ll receive details on implementation, costs, and a contract. All information regarding the submission procedure can be found here.

TSS sends in the field questionnaires of maximum 20 minutes. If your questionnaire is shorter than 20 minutes, TSS may combine your questions with questions from another applicant to come to the 20 minutes-length of our questionnaires. At the time of submission, you are asked to assess the length of your questionnaire by using TSS Timing tool. You may always reach out to TSS Survey Management for help if needed.

TSS provides a timing tool that helps researchers estimate the length of their questionnaire. Of course, this refers to average values as individual panel members might take much shorter/longer to answer a questionnaire.  The timing tool can be found here.

TSS Scientific Committee is in charge of evaluating questionnaire proposals. This committee gathers experts from all Belgian universities and from a large number of disciplines in the social and behavorial sciences. As a rule, TSS Scientific Committee members do not take part in decisions about proposals from researchers they supervise.

Questionnaires are four weeks in the field.

TSS administers a yearly core study questionnaire that captures essential socio-demographic, behavioral, and attitudinal information among all panel members. The core study questionnaire aims to make available this data to the scientific community, minimizing the need for commissioned questionnaires to repeat basic inquiries (e.g., education level and household composition).

Yes, with the TSS Panel you can collect both cross-sectional and longitudinal data.

Yes, the TSS panel allows for experimental designs. 

The data collection can be conducted in Dutch and/or French. Panel members can register as either Dutch- or French speaking, regardless of the Region they live in. Dutch-speaking panel members receive Dutch questionnaires, French-speaking panel members receive French questionnaires. Some studies survey members of the panel across Belgium and are therefore collected in both Dutch and French. Other studies will only target one language group, and we adapt the language of data collection accordingly.

Researchers conducting studies using the TSS panel will have exclusive access to the collected data for their specific study. After this embargo period of 12 months, the data will be published in the SODHA archive, becoming available for use by other researchers upon completion of a data use agreement.

TSS applies an open data policy. After an embargo period of one year, all collected data is made available to the research community upon registration. Researchers and analysts who have signed the data use agreement are granted access to the data archive for a period of two years. To maintain access beyond this period, researchers must reapply. All information on how to access the data and the rules and conditions can be found here. 

Researchers conducting studies using the TSS panel will have exclusive access to the collected data for their specific study. After a period of 12 months, the data will be published in the SODHA archive, becoming available for use by other researchers upon completion of a data use agreement. More information on how to access TSS data and the rules and conditions can be found here.