Levada Center

Levada Center is a Russian independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organisation. It is named after its founder, the first Russian professor of sociology Yuri Levada (1930—2006). Levada Center traces back its history to 1987 when VCIOM was founded, originally headed by Academician Tatyana Zaslavskaya. Being one of the largest Russian research companies, Levada Center regularly conducts its own and commissioned sociological and marketing researches.

Structure

The non-governmental organisation Levada Analytical Center was originally formed in 1987–1988 and called the All-Union Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM). Due to some internal changes it was re-established in 2003 as an independent non-governmental organization.

It is carrying out public opinion—and research polls in such fields as sociology, economy, psychology, and marketing. With an approximate of 50 people working in the Moscow office, 80 fieldwork supervisors in the regional branches and about 3000 trained interviewers, it is today one of the largest full-service agencies in Russia.

The key personnel are the founders of the company who started their research programs at VCIOM and now continue them in the Levada Center. From 2003 until 2006 the director was Yuri Levada. In December, 2006 Lev Dmitrievitsch Gudkov was assigned to this post.

The basic research departments are:

• Department of Socio-political Researches (Head – Boris Dubin)

• Department of Living Standards Research......
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