The University of Helsinki Citizen Barometer is a non-commercial online panel, created specifically for research purposes, where the same participants are followed over an extended period of time, responding to socially relevant questions. The questions asked may relate, for example, to people's values, opinions and experiences of Finnish society. The Citizen Barometer is conducted in cooperation with the Helsinki Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities (HSSH). The purpose of the Citizen Barometer is to promote innovative and socially relevant research on Finnish society.
The Citizen Barometer was launched in 2023, and consists of two panels: one randomly recruited, and one self-recruited panel.
The randomly recruited panel is based on a random population-based sample of Finnish citizens, 18-80 (including the Åland Islands). The random sample from the population was commissioned from the Digital and Population Data Services Agency in January 2023. In February 2023, 20,000 invitation letters were sent out, and two weeks later, a reminder letter was sent. A total of 2,943 people joined the Citizen Barometer by providing their e-mail address, giving a participation rate of 14.7%. In February 2025, a new recruitment for the Citizen Barometer will be conducted, based on random samples from the population register.
The self-recruited panel (known as opt-in) consists of around 5,000 panelists. These individuals were invited to participate in the Citizen Barometer following their response to Yle’s or Helsingin Sanomat's election compasses in the run-up to the 2023 parliamentary elections or the 2024 presidential elections.
The data is weighted using a combination weight to ensure it is representative of the target population. In the first phase, so-called post-stratification weights have been calculated, taking into account the age, gender, language, and region (19 areas) of those who responded to the recruitment survey. In subsequent rounds of research, the original weighting will be combined with a non-response weight for each individual round.
Researchers affiliated to the University of Helsinki can now utilize the Citizen Barometer when conducting their own studies. If you are interested in using the Citizen Barometer to collect primary data, you should submit an application according to the instructions below.
It is also possible to utilize portions of the Citizen Barometer’s previously collected primary data for research projects and studies. If you or your research team are interested in accessing the data, you may contact us. Codebooks for all survey rounds conducted are available upon request. Please note that all applications will be reviewed and assessed on a case-by-case basis.
The Citizen Barometer is intended as a non-profit research infrastructure for researchers at the University of Helsinki. Please note that the distribution of primary data is free of charge, while the collection of new data is subject to a fee. The costs associated with data access vary depending on the specific case, including factors such as the number of questions, the desired sample size, and the complexity or experimental nature of the research design.
In order to request access to data, or the possibility of using the Citizen Barometer to carry out your own survey, please send an application to the Citizen Barometer email address: medborgarbarometern@helsinki.fi and to Åsa von Schoultz (asa.vonschoultz@helsinki.fi). The application can be written in Swedish, Finnish or English. The request to collect data should contain the following information:
Applications are examined by the research team and final decisions are taken by the Citizen Barometer steering group. Decisions on the acceptance of applications are based on the number of applications received, suitability and quality. We reserve the right to reject questions that are not suited to the Citizen Barometer or whose scientific quality is insufficient.
If necessary, question formulations and translations will be discussed with the research group that has submitted the application. Please note that all surveys are carried out in both Swedish and Finnish. The responsibility of translation lies with the applicant.
The Citizen Barometer team is responsible for managing the data collection for all approved questions, surveys, and experiments. Surveys are conducted using the Qualtrics platform. In cases involving complex experimental designs, and where the participating research team possesses the requisite expertise, they may be involved in the coding process.
Our surveys usually have a response rate of 40-70%, which at this time means that approximately 1,000-1,400 responses can be expected from the randomly recruited panel, and approximately 2000-3000 responses from the self-recruited panel. The data material is weighted to be representative of the adult Finnish population.
Common background variables (age, gender, province, party sympathy, political interest, ideology, etc.) have been collected in previous rounds of surveys. These can be linked to the current data collection and do not therefore need to be re-queried. If you need more information about questions that have already been posed, please contact us.
At the end of the data collection, the team receives both the material and a code book that includes the variables ordered as well as the relevant background variables.