EUI – YouGov – SOLID ‘Solidarity in Europe’ (SiE) project

The main objective of this project is to track the evolution of solidarity in Europe (SiE), understood as the sharing of risks and resources amongst Europeans. The project fields a yearly, nationally-representative, large-N survey since 2018, with the aim of monitoring the extent to which support for solidarity has changed over time, particularly in light of the emergence of collective, pan-European crises such as COVID-19 or the geopolitical crisis in Ukraine. The project is a collaboration between the EUI and YouGov, hosted under the EGPP’s remit and, from 2022, in partnership with the ERC project SOLID who conjointly develop the survey and provide input and resources. The project produces research outputs such as datasets, scientific journal articles, policy briefs and media contributions, and will replicate and expand the survey annually in the upcoming years.

All six waves of the survey (2018-2023) are publicly available on GESIS and Cadmus (see links below) and are fielded every year between late March and late April; each wave’s sample size is around 20.000 respondents, while the country pool has been gradually expanded since the first rendition of the survey (2018), reaching 16 EU member states and the UK in the 2023 SiE survey wave.

Since the beginning of the project, the survey explores how support for European solidarity varies by issue (solidarity for what?), instrument (solidarity how?) and by member state (solidarity by whom for whom?). The 2020 survey extended the scope of the research to inquire which  ‘kind of society’ and which ‘kind of Europe’ citizens wish to live in. The 2021 survey included additional questions on COVID-19 vaccines and restrictions; the 2022 wave further expanded the questionnaire with questions on the war in Ukraine; and, finally, the 2023 wave incorporates new items designed to further probe solidarity preferences under different crisis contexts and along different types of policy instruments.

To promote research on European solidarity, the project hosts a yearly call for contributions, culminating in the SiE-SOLID conference in Florence, held in partnership with the EGPP and SOLID. The conference, one of the key events on European solidarity around the year, fosters the production and sharing of the most recent scholarship on solidarity in Europe and the EU. Moreover, the conference is also an important forum for scholars to participate in finetuning future survey waves, adjusting them to new challenges, crises and opportunities that arise over time. While past conferences were held in late January, the 2025 edition is set to take place in May.

The project is currently led by Dietlind Stolle (McGill and EUI), Luis Russo (EUI) and Lorenzo Cicchi (EUI), with the collaboration of Hanspeter Kriesi (EUI), Ioana-Elena Oana (EUI), Alexandru Moise (EUI) and Daniel Kovarek (EUI). Other members of SOLID provide input and collaboration during fieldwork, which is ensured by YouGov under the direction of Stephan Shakespeare and Jonathan van Parys. Previous members include the two project founders (Philipp Genschel, Bremen and EUI) Anton Hemerijck (EUI) and Mohamed Nasr (ETH Zürich).

Research based on SiE data is welcome; for any inquiry concerning the survey or the SiE conference, please contact egpp@eui.eu.

Dataset (Cadmus)

Datasets (Gesis)

Peer-reviewed articles

Conference Addresses

Policy briefs

Press and blogs

State of the Union addresses

Preprints and conference papers