The Union Survey
Who We Are
The Union Survey is led by Prof Ailsa Henderson of the University of Edinburgh and and Prof Richard Wyn Jones of Cardiff University.
Ailsa Henderson
Ailsa Henderson is Professor of Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, where teaches courses on UK and comparative politics as well as research methods, quantitative analysis. Her published research examines sub-state political behaviour, including voter turnout, political culture and civic engagement.
She has published extensively on Scottish and English politics, the dynamics of the Union, how voters make decisions and the similarities and differences between Scotland and Quebec. She is a well-known media commentator, currently serves as chair of the Boundaries Scotland, and previously worked at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Toronto.
Richard Wyn Jones
Richard is Professor of Welsh Politics and Director of the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, where he teaches on Welsh politics, Welsh political thought, territorial politics in the UK, and Nationalism in the UK and elsewhere. His research focuses on the relationships and tensions between the component territories of the UK, voters and voting in Wales and elsewhere, nationalisms and national identities.
Richard is a regular and widely respected broadcaster, commentating on Welsh politics in both Welsh and English for the BBC in Wales and across the UK. He has presented two TV series and is a regular columnist for the Welsh language current affairs magazine Barn.
Nick Bibby
Nick leads the Union Survey's communication activities. He is also Director of Social Science Connected and one of the UK's leading communicators of academic research. He has a particular focus on communicating political science and a longstanding interest in territorial politics. He previously worked at the ESRC Centre on Constitutional Change and and the Future of the UK and Scotland research programmes.
He is best known for his work communicating academic outputs into public policy, and was the founding director of the Scottish Policy & Research Exchange prior to taking up his current role.
He began his career in journalism, writing for - among others - the Scotsman, Herald, Sunday Times, Holyrood Magazine and Independent.
Join The Network
If you would like to be kept up to date with our work, and if you just have a professional interest in the changing nature of the UK's union, then why not join our network to continue the discussion?
We won't bombard you with newsletters you don't have time to read or updates about unrelated topics. However, we will share new data and analysis when we have it, and invite you to online events to discuss them.
What We Do
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The Union Survey is a long-running public opinion survey, conducted in each of the four nations of the UK.
We are interested in how people see their relationships to various tiers of government - local authorities, devolved administrations, the UK Government and Parliament, and the European Union. We also explore public attitudes towards constitutional arrangements in other parts of the UK - not just how we see ourselves, but how we see each other.
We use large sample sizes in each nation to allow for a detailed comparison between attitudes. While we gather data in response to the certain topics over time, we also explore how voters respond to the issues of the day and UK's changing constitutional arrangements.
The Union Survey incorporates the Future of England Survey and the State of the Union Survey, and has conducted in at least two of the UK's four territories in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023.
We are grateful to the funders who have supported this work over many years, including Cardiff University, the University of Edinburgh, the Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship, the ESRC, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Welsh Government, and the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales.
Public attitudes on the state of the state