About the ASC

ASC at a glance

Provider of conferences on research/technology related topics
Awards excellence and innovation
Facilitates peer-to-peer networking for practitioners
Supports standards and best practices
Community based: volunteer led and member owned

The Association for Survey Computing is a professional association that provides a forum for practitioners and those who share an interest in the technology of market, opinion and social research, and related disciplines. We are a long-standing organisation, with roots that extend back over 40 years.

ASC is governed by an Executive Committee of Directors and members, made up of experienced industry professionals who freely volunteer their time. The current Executive Committee can be viewed here.

In 2022 the ASC became a ‘not-for-private-profit’ Community Interest Company (CIC). This means that we are owned by our members all profits from our activities are used to provide benefit to our defined community: professionals and practitioners who work in or have an interest in the technology used in market, opinion and social research, polling, official statistics, survey data and other consumer or behavioural data. We deliberately keep our interests broad, as there is no end to what we can learn by looking at other, related disciplines when it comes to technology.

We offer programme of conferences, events and other activities each specifically designed to support our community, provide knowledge-sharing, developing best practices, celebrating excellence and offering a great place to network with peers. Our programme of events is only possible thanks to the generosity of our sponsors.

Behind our activities stand our broad and diverse membership. We celebrate diversity and strive to make all our activities welcoming and inclusive of everyone in our community whether they are members or not.

Recognising that we work in a global industry, though our physical activities are largely UK-based, we use the power of live-streaming to encourage participation on a global basis, and we have long had members and participants from around the world.

ASC’s nine core principles

Practical and applied. We make technical issues more accessible for research practitioners and stimulate open discussion focused on the practicalities of applying technology to research.
A force for positive change. We encourage honest, pragmatic, open conversations with the aim of achieving positive change in our sector, whether by spreading knowledge, developing the understanding of best practices or encouraging the adoption of open formats and standards.
Reach beyond surveys. Our roots are diverse and spread well beyond market research and surveys into social research, statistics, data science and beyond.
ResTech to the core. Though our roots spread far, we are the natural home for ResTech, or research technology, and for the research technologist.
High quality. We achieve the highest levels of quality and professionalism in our events and activities, not least in the quality of presentations that make up our conferences.
Trust and rigour. We are proud of our reputation for trust and rigour, as evidenced in the nature of our conferences, in our awards and in our emphasis on methodology and transparency in all our activities.
Friendly supportive community. Our is a community of practical minded people who offer friendship and support to one-another, from the honest, unvarnished truth often spoken in our conferences, to the opportunities we provide for peers to meet.
Inexpensive to participate. Conferences are expensive, but we work hard to keep ours affordable for as many as possible, including whenever we can the option to participate free of charge online.
UK based, internationally open. Though we are based in the UK, we look out to the world and we always welcome international participation.