IVO – Partner in an International Research Consortium
Institute for Public Affairs became Slovak partner in the collaborative project “Providing an Infrastructure for Research on Electoral Democracy in the European Union”, co-ordinated by the European University Institute and its Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.
The pan-European project is funded by the European Union under the Seventh Framework Programme. The main objective is to provide an infrastructure for research into citizenship, political participation, and electoral democracy in the European Union (EU).
PIREDEU has its origins in the European Election Studies (EES) conducted under various auspices since 1979. Slovakia joined the project in 2004, when the European election was held for the first time. IVO sociologist Olga Gyarfasova served as the principal national research coordinator and she represents Slovakia also in the recent consortium.
PIREDEU involves more than 20 participating researchers from some 14 institutions in western and central-and-eastern Europe and a large community of affiliated experts from all EU member states.