Over three days in April, research experts and standards experts representing many countries, standards industry bodies, and research associations participated in a Working Group meeting in Tokyo.
May 4th, 2017 – Toronto, CAN: Over three days in April, research experts and standards experts representing many countries, standards industry bodies, and research associations participated in a Working Group meeting in Tokyo. Those contributing included VMÖ (Austria), MRS (UK), CMRA (China), JMRA (Japan), MOA (Netherlands), AMSRS (Australia), MRIA (Canada), ANEIMO (Spain), ARIA (the Americas), ESOMAR, and WAPOR. Our sincerest thanks are offered to Mr. Yuji NAKANO from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for his warm welcome, secretary general Mr. Kazunori WATANABE and JMRA for their thoughtful care of the committee, and Rakuten for hosting us in their beautiful, new building.
A Working Group of the ISO Technical Committee 225 (TC 225), which has responsibility for market, opinion, and social ISO research standards, met to discuss and consider ISO 20252: 2012: Market, opinion and social research – vocabulary and service requirements. Upon conclusion of the Working Group meetings, excellent progress had been made.
The aim of the revision is to improve navigability with clearly defined, separate areas to support the various sectors within the market, social, and opinion research industry. The ISO updating process will take at least one more year, and research service suppliers working towards certification to either ISO 20252 or ISO 26362 should continue their efforts. All the current requirements will be incorporated in the new combined standard, plus new additions that reflect the changes in research practices, including leading edge technologies, since the standards were finalised in 2012 and 2009. By ensuring that the existing obligations are being met, research service providers will be much better prepared to adapt their systems to the new requirements once the revised ISO 20252 standard has been finalized.
As before, this standard covers topics such as project management requirements, proposals and tenders, and project execution for various methodological components of research such as sampling, fieldwork, observation, self-completion, data management, and processing. Over the coming months, we will continue to revise and refine the standard after which time it will be put forward for commentary. This improved and updated standard will be formalized, translated, and made available to the global research industry likely in 2018. We will share precise dates as these become available from ISO.