The Speakers 2009

Keynote speakers

Liz Nelson
Q Research Ltd, UK
"The potential of mobile research: Implications for the future, and the role of industry standards"

In the market research field the name of Dr Liz Nelson is legendary. As founder and chairman of Taylor Nelson Sofres she helped develop the market research principles that have formed the foundation of today’s industry. TNS plc was the second largest market research company in the world at the time of its acquisition by WPP.
Liz currently pursues a wide range of interests and activities: she chairs a new UK market research company, Q Research that is pioneering online surveys via mobile phones to a panel of 5000 young people. She also serves on the Disciplinary Board of the Market Research Society.
American by birth, Liz came to Britain to study for a PhD in Clinical Psychology at London University. Among her many accolades she holds honorary doctorates from City University, the Open University; Hon. Fellowship of University of Roehamption and is a Gold Medallist of the Market Research Society.

Tim Macer
meaning ltd, UK
"Mobile technology in research: Trends and perspectives"

Tim Macer is the founder of meaning ltd, a consulting company based in London which specialises in research technology. Tim has over 25 years experience as a research technology practitioner, and is known internationally as an independent and authoritative observer and advocate for the application of software and informatics in the field of survey research. He is Visiting Senior Fellow at the University of Southampton in marketing analytics and is a widely published writer on the subject.

Marek Fuchs
University of Kassel, Germany
“Mobile surveys. The future of survey research or just another mode?”

Marek Fuchs, PhD., is an associate professor for research methods at the department of social sciences, University of Kassel, Germany. He received his PhD in 1993 and conducted post-doctoral work at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, USA. His research interests include — among other topics — methodological aspects of Web surveys and the use of mobile phones in survey research.

Vasja Vehovar
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
"Mobile phone surveys in mixed mode environment: Balancing costs and errors"

Vasja Vehovar, Ph.D., is a Professor of Statistics at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. The main areas of his research interest include the problem of survey non-response, web survey methodology and social aspects of the Internet and other ICTs. He is the principal investigator of the internationally recognized project WebSM - Web Survey Methodology portal.

Program committee

Michael Bosnjak
(Head of Program Committee)
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

Michael Bosnjak, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the School of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (South Tyrol, Italy). His research interests include: Research synthesis methods, marketing research methods, Internet-based data collection methodology, and consumer psychology with a special emphasis on individual differences and self-concept-related/symbolic consumption.

Bernad Batinic
University of Linz, Austria

Bernad Batinic is a professor of Learning and Working with New Media at the University of Linz. In 1994, he performed the first World Wide Web survey in the German-speaking countries and published the first guideline for the correct conduct of online surveys. It was under his leadership that GOR (German Online Research) took place in Nuremberg in 1999. Batinic is the founder and chairman of the biggest mailing list in the German-speaking countries (GIR-L) concerning online research topics, on which more than 1,300 experts exchange information. He is also the author of numerous books on the subject of online research. Since 1998 he has been the editor of the “Internet und Psychologie” (“Internet and Psychology”) series of books (Hogrefe Verlag).

Mick Couper
University of Michigan, USA

Mick P. Couper, Ph.D., is a Research Professor in the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, and the Joint Program in Survey Methodology. His research interests include survey nonresponse and the use of technology in survey data collection.

Lars Kaczmirek
Center for Survey Design and Methodology (former GESIS-ZUMA), Germany

Lars Kaczmirek, Ph.D., is a survey research methodologist at GESIS, Germany. His primary research interests include Internet surveys, reducing survey error, website evaluation, survey software evaluation, security and data protection, accessibility and usability issues.

Bozidar Klicek
University of Zagreb, Croatia

Bozidar Klicek is a full professor at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Organization and Informatics in Varazdin. His main field of interest is the application of intelligent and multimedia systems, particularly in the field of complex systems management. He is a member of AAAI, ACM, IEEE Computer, IFITT, and an associate of the Croatian Academy of Engineering. His research centers on the endeavor to obtain exact models of social, economical, technical and ecological systems through development of new methods of knowledge acquisition, such as multi-modal surveys, as well as various techniques of data mining, e.g. fuzzy rules and neural networks.

Katja Lozar Manfreda
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Katja Lozar Manfreda, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Statistics and Social Informatics at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). Her current research interests include survey methodology, new technologies in social science data collection and web survey methodology.

Vasja Vehovar
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia