Last autumn we published the data for Austria from the first wave of the Values in Crisis Survey - Wolfgang Aschauer from the University of Salzburg talked to us at the time about the initial findings of the study and explained that it is a comparative survey across different countries.

We are pleased to announce that the first international VIC dataset is now available in our archive: On the initiative of the German political scientist Christian Welzel, 16 countries participated in the study. It is a longitudinal design with three survey waves – in each wave, the same respondents are interviewed. This makes it the only study currently offering longitudinal data on changes in attitudes and values during the COVID-19 pandemic in a worldwide comparison of countries. Research teams from Europe, Asia, Latin America and the CIS states participated. The second wave of the survey is currently underway, while the third wave is planned for 2022.

The processing of the international data took place in Austria. That process came with a number of challenges, from language barriers to the harmonization of variables such as income or education to differences between various scientific cultures. Otto Bodi-Fernandez and Manfred Herzog from the AUSSDA team collaborated closely with Salzburg sociologists Wolfgang Aschauer and Alexander Seymer, who were responsible for the national survey in Austria, together with researchers from the Universities of Graz and Linz (team of the Social Survey Austria). This cooperation makes it possible to make the data of the first wave of the international VIC study available in our dataverse – to value researchers around the globe.

Find out more details about the study here and download this special dataset!