Method

Empirical Social Research

When developing measures and approaches for transformations towards sustainability, it is important to know and understand people’s perspectives.

This means finding out what attitudes, needs, motives or perceptions people have and what measures or changes in behavior they accept or reject. Amongst other things, we consequently develop segmentations or target group models, on the basis of which specific communication approaches for socio-ecological transformations are created. We use various methods of empirical social research:

We conduct standardized surveys to assess the attitudes, needs and acceptance of measures that promote sustainability among the population. We design these surveys as representative nationwide or regional population surveys or as panel surveys. In addition, we conduct municipal surveys, for example to determine the status of municipal climate adaptation.

To explore new issues, but also to identify deeper, complex phenomena, attitudes or perspectives, we use qualitative methods of empirical social research. These include for example guideline-based, problem-centered interviews, VR-assisted and ethnographic interview methods, expert interviews, Delphi surveys and focus groups or future workshops. In order to gain the most comprehensive and well-founded understanding of the issue at hand, we often work with a mixed-methods approach in which case we combine qualitative and quantitative surveys. We also work with discourse, media and governance analyses.

Projects