Panel FAQs

JPR conducts online surveys about a wide range of issues of concern to Jewish organisations operating across the community. The data we generate is designed to provide community leaders with the information they need to help them plan for the future. Our research panel is a large database of Jews from across the UK who have agreed to participate in these surveys and share their thoughts on key issues affecting Jewish life. Anyone who is Jewish, aged 16 or above and lives in the UK is free to join.

The panel is managed by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), an independent research organisation providing data to help Jewish organisations in the UK and across Europe plan for the future. You can learn more about our work by visiting the JPR website: www.jpr.org.uk

JPR is an independent research organisation that provides social and demographic data to support the development of Jewish life in the UK and across Europe. Our data are used by Jewish charities and foundations, academics and governmental bodies keen to support the enhancement of Jewish life.

Our panel is made up of Jews from all over the UK who want to share their views on the issues that matter most to Jews across the country. It aims to be representative of the Jewish population of the UK. All we ask is that our panel members are Jewish, aged 16 or over and live in the UK.

To join the panel, simply click here and follow the instructions.

Yes – only panel members can participate in our surveys. Joining is important as it helps us to ensure that our findings are as representative as possible of the Jewish population, and to track changes in opinion over time. Joining the panel does not mean you have to take part in all, or any, surveys – you are always free to opt out at any time.

As a panel member you will be invited to take part in between one and four surveys throughout the year, each of which should take you about twenty to thirty minutes to complete. You don't have to take part in all the surveys we invite you to, but it would be helpful if you could complete as many as possible. The surveys will ask questions on a range of topics related to Jewish life, including care and welfare, education, synagogue life, cultural consumption, national and international politics, attitudes to Israel and antisemitism.

As a panel member you will be contacted from time to time to ask you to take part in our research. This will largely take the form of online surveys, but may, over time, include interviews, focus groups or discussions, if you are willing.

We plan to invite each panel member to participate in between one and four surveys a year. On each occasion we will contact you and give you all the relevant information about the research and ask if you are willing to take part. You will always have the right to decline without having to give a reason. Every time you participate, you will have the right to enter a prize draw to thank you for your participation.

Your responsibilities as a panel member

If you complete any of our surveys, it will be your responsibility to:

• Treat seriously all questions asked, and answer all questions honestly;
• Let us know if you have any problems or queries so we can help;
• Ensure that you will not at any time use the fact that you have participated in JPR surveys in any advertising or marketing material, or seek to associate yourself with JPR at any time without our prior consent.

Our responsibilities

If you participate in any research for JPR, it will be our responsibility to:

• Provide you with clear information about what’s required, including incentives, deadlines where available and practical considerations;
• Provide you with any assistance we can to help you to complete the survey within reason;
• Respond to your queries quickly and efficiently, and notify prize draw winners within one month of the closure of any given survey.

Data protection

By agreeing to join the research panel, you give your consent to us retaining some personal data needed by JPR. We know that privacy matters to you so the information you provide to us will be treated in the strictest confidence and will only be used for research purposes. The software for the surveys is provided by Forsta. Forsta does not have any access to the data other than when JPR permits Forsta under supervision solely for technical support work. Access is revoked once work is completed.

Under normal circumstances we are unlikely to contact you more than once a quarter and you are under no obligation to participate in any survey. However, if after several attempts you do not participate in any surveys, we may contact you asking if you wish to continue to be a member. If we have had no communication or confirmation that you wish to remain a member, we may consider you an inactive member and we reserve the right to remove you from the panel.

We expect to run between one and four surveys per annum, and you will be invited to participate in some or all of them. You are under no obligation to do so, but we encourage participation wherever possible, as low response levels can affect the quality of our findings.

Data from JPR surveys are used by Jewish community leaders, trusts and foundations, as well as governmental bodies, NGOs, researchers, academics and the media. In all cases, our data are designed to be used to support and enhance Jewish life.

JPR conducts surveys for Jewish community organisations, trusts and foundations and governmental bodies operating at the local, national and European levels. Some of our work is financed by such bodies as part of their quest to understand a particular issue of importance to them, and some is financed by the donations JPR receives from our patrons and supporters. JPR functions at all times as an independent, non-partisan, apolitical and objective research body, gathering and analysing the data in accordance with the highest academic standards. Our surveys are not written from any political viewpoint; they are social scientific studies designed to read public opinion accurately. Rest assured that when you answer a JPR survey, your privacy is secure, and your responses make an important contribution to Jewish life.

You can read the results of many of our surveys on the JPR website: www.jpr.org.uk. As a panel member, you will also be emailed our findings from time-to-time.

This may be because we are still analysing the data and are not yet ready to publish. Alternatively, it may be because JPR conducts surveys for a variety of clients and is sometimes asked to keep the results from those surveys confidential.

Whilst we hope you will enjoy being a member of the panel, should you wish to leave for any reason, you can cancel your membership by contacting us directly by phone on 0800 044 5077, or by email at panel@jpr.org.uk. You can also unsubscribe from our email updates by selecting the unsubscribe link in them.

JPR surveys typically take between 20 and 30 minutes to complete but can be a little longer or shorter than that on occasion. You do not have to complete them in one sitting.

Every time we have a new survey for you to complete you will receive an email telling you, and you will be able to access the survey straight from the email.

You are not expected to do every survey, and most will be open for at least two weeks, so if you cannot complete it immediately, you will have further chances to do so. If you cannot complete one, just delete the email and wait until you are invited to another one. Bear in mind that most of our surveys are conducted online, so they can be completed anywhere as long as you have a computer, tablet or smart phone and an internet connection.

Usually surveys need to be completed within a week or two of the invitation being sent, although you may have more or less time in certain instances

If we have sufficient time to leave a survey open, we will, in order to allow the maximum number of people time to respond. However, there may be occasions when we need a rapid response on an urgent issue, and in such instances, we may need to conduct a survey very quickly. This may mean that the survey is only available for a much shorter period of time.

The survey is not completed until you reach the end page confirming you have completed it. Should you have to stop in the middle and close the survey, don't worry, simply click back on the link that you were sent by email, and as long as the survey is still open, you will be able to finish it. Note that any previous answers you have given will be saved, so you will not need to re-answer all of the questions.

If you haven't received a survey yet, it could be for any one of the following reasons:

• We don't send all surveys out to every panel member;
• We try, where possible, to balance the number of surveys you receive, as we don’t want to over burden you;
• We may not have a survey relevant to you yet. We sometimes target different surveys to particular groups of people to ensure that they are as relevant as possible.
• The survey invitation email may have been received into your junk mail folder. Please do continue to monitor this folder in case of this eventuality.

We actively target specific groups of people for each survey to ensure that only relevant surveys are sent to our panel members. This may mean that some time may go by before we target a particular group of which you are a member.

Our surveys are by invitation only and to ensure the highest standards of professional academic research, you can only complete any given survey once.

If you have any questions about a survey, please contact us by email at panel@jpr.org.uk so that we can direct your concerns to the most appropriate member of the team. If you would rather speak to someone directly, you can call us on FREEPHONE 0800 044 5077.

JPR often offers rewards for completing our surveys such as entry into a prize draw or winning Amazon gift vouchers. Any rewards available will be made clear during the survey completion process and JPR reserves the right to end the rewards once a pre-determined limit has been reached.

We seek to process all prize draw payments within one calendar month of the completion of each survey.

If you have any technical questions relating to the JPR panel we will certainly try to assist you. Please bear in mind it may take up to two working days to respond to your enquiry. Our surveys are hosted on a platform that is designed to be accessed by respondents on any browser supporting HTML 4.01/XHTML and CSS. For any technical questions please email JPR at panel@jpr.org.uk.

If you have any other questions, please email us at panel@jpr.org.uk and your request will be directed to the most appropriate person to deal with it. We will endeavour to respond to all enquiries as quickly as possible.

If you wish to file a complaint, please email us at panel@jpr.org.uk and it will be directed to the most appropriate person to deal with it. We will endeavour to respond to all concerns as quickly as possible.

No. Under no conditions will JPR give, rent, or sell your email address to anyone else or allow messages to be sent to you by third parties.

No. JPR only conducts legitimate public surveys. You will not be asked to buy or subscribe to anything.

Yes. Your responses will be used only for statistical tabulations, such as "75% of Jews in the UK make at least one charitable donation per annum" or "60% of Jews in the UK belong to a synagogue." Your individual answers will never be shown in a manner that reveals your identity. For further details click here.

All individual responses to JPR surveys are treated in the strictest confidence (see Privacy Statement), and anonymised and amalgamated for analytical purposes. No individuals will be able to be identified in the results. After analysis, our research findings are shared to support community planning.

JPR complies with data protection legislation. JPR has a strict policy never to sell or share personal information with third parties. Any data collected will not be supplied, shared, or disclosed to any external organisations or individuals, unless you give explicit permission or there is a legal obligation to do so.

Concerning our legal obligations, there may be some cases where we will have to share your personal data, such as if we are required to do so by law or in response to a court order or law enforcement agency. In addition, in exceptional circumstances, where we think someone is at serious risk of being harmed or is in immediate danger, we may contact the police or a local health or relevant safeguarding team to intervene.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you free of charge. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact JPR, 6 Greenland Place, London NW1 0AP. Phone: 0800 044 5077 or email: panel@jpr.org.uk.