ESOMAR CONNECT – PRESS RELEASE
ESOMAR CONNECT 2025, CYPRUS, NICOSIA
LAUNCHING INTEGRITY: “Ethical Polling for Cyprus’ Pre-Election Period”
Today, Wednesday, November 5, 2025, ESOMAR CONNECT organized an information day entitled “Launching Integrity: Ethical Polling for Cyprus‘ Pre-Election Period“, in collaboration with the local association of companies, SEDEAK (Cyprus Association of Polling and Market Research Companies).
The event aimed to highlight the importance of the Code of Conduct for conducting and presenting opinion polls, surveys and market studies, strengthening the relationship of trust between citizens, institutions and research companies.
The welcome was addressed by the President of SEDEAK, Eleni Marangou, who stressed the importance of polls in the pre-election environment, pointing out that they are an objective reflection of the views, concerns and expectations of society, and not a tool for predicting an election result.
Afterwards, Joachim Bretcha, Global General Manager of ESOMAR, addressed a note on behalf of the organization, expressing his thanks to the representativeof ESOMAR Cyprus, Lysandros Hajilambrou, for his contribution to the success of the initiative in the country, while underlining the strategic importance of Cyprus as a creative country and a strategic hub for the development of research in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
Mr. Bretcha also referred to the importance of self-regulation of markets and the international Code of Conduct, as a guarantee of transparency and credibility, but also to the need to ensure the freedom to conduct opinion polls, as a fundamental condition for the democratic expression of the public, and informed public debate.
This was followed by a presentation by Lysandros Hatzilambrou, who briefly referred to the history of ESOMAR, the role it plays, the online encyclopedia of knowledge that it publishes to its members, but also the Code of Conduct that defines the standards for conducting and presenting polls. He referred to the importance of self-government and self-regulation as key tools for quality assurance and professional ethics, examining the advantages and disadvantages of regulating the profession either through internal mechanisms (self-regulation) or through external institutional interventions, such as government regulations, and at the same time, analyzed the three “seismic changes” that have affected the sector in the last decade, and therefore it was considered imperative to renew the code to be fully up-to-date and harmonized with them:
First, the use of artificial intelligence in the collection, processing and especially analysis of data, including synthetic respondents.
Second, the rapid expansion of the market research ecosystem since today companies are presented as providers of tools and intermediaries and have a special role to play in the conduct of the market research profession.
Third, the critical importance of maintaining the level of trust at the highest possible levels, since today it is mainly attacked by the fact that in today’s era misinformation and manipulation is developing both through fake news and mainly through social media (Social Media). He also noted that the levels of trust must be maintained at high levels, since the profession is based on the trust that companies possess both on the part of their customers and on the part of the respondents who invest their time to provide information, but of course also by the public itself, which in any case must understand that the photographic snapshot they are watching is a product of a real image and not misinformation.
This was followed by two panel discussions with the participation of politicians, academics and professionals in the field.
The first discussion, on “What is the relationship between parties and polls“, highlighted the role of public opinion surveys as a tool for political understanding and communication. With the participation of President of the Parliament and President of DISY Mrs. Annita Demetriou , the General Secretary of AKEL Stefanos Stefanou and the Vice President of DIKO Christiana Erotokritou, coordinated by Emilia Kenevezou.
The speakers took a position on the use, interpretation and political utilization of polls, as well as the boundaries between information and influence of the electorate. They also referred to the importance of individual regulation of the profession in cooperation with members of SEDEAK who operate under the code of ethics of ESOMAR and compliance with its rules.
The second discussion, on “Factors that make it difficult to conduct polls – Possible remedies and solutions”, focused on the technical and institutional challenges of the sector, such as the reduction of citizen participation, the reliability of methodologies and the need to educate the public on understanding the results.
Pambos Papageorgiou, Dimitris Lottidis and the members of SEDEAK Christina Kokkalou and Panagiotis Panagiotou participated.
In all the discussion groups, the issue of regulation on the basis of the principles of publication of poll results and market research dominated, and it was agreed that further discussion would arise so that any institutionalization could take place with the contribution of experts. In this way, it will be able to cover, but without limiting the practice of the profession, parameters that make the publications in the results of polls as fair, reliable and integral as they can be. Also to maintain the right for the public to continue to express their views, which are of course recorded through the tool of polls.
With this initiative, ESOMAR maintains its commitment to transparency, accuracy, reliability and accountability in the conduct and publication of opinion polls at particularly high levels, actively contributing to the formulation of market research based on trust and adherence to ESOMAR’s own code of conduct.
