Global
development and financial assistance programs demand a broad range of
research and analysis to ensure that they respond to the needs of the most
vulnerable populations and that scarce resource are allocated in the most
effective manner possible. Towards
this end, NORC’s International Projects (INPRO) department provides core
expertise in rigorous impact evaluations, process and other implementation
evaluations, analytic research, and surveys and other data collection
methodologies. INPRO’s areas of subject matter expertise include agriculture,
infrastructure, international finance, microfinance, housing finance/mortgage
lending, think tank mentoring, business climate, land registration, and
poverty alleviation.
NORC has had a history of work in the international arena since shortly
after the organization was founded in 1941, when founder Harry Field
convinced the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) to include a survey division within its scope, and then
inspired the establishment in 1946 of the World Association for Public
Opinion Research (WAPOR), an organization now represented by experts and
scholars from more than 60 countries on six continents. In the 1960s, NORC
led a five-nation study of public attitudes toward various political systems,
and a national study of Canadian youth on their attitudes toward
biculturalism and bilingualism. Two decades later, NORC worked with
researchers in Japan and the Soviet Union to create comparability between
variables used in surveys abroad to those used in the U.S.
In 1984, NORC was one of four research organizations ― the only one in the
U.S. ― to found the worldwide social indicator research program,
International Social Survey Program (ISSP), in its continued promotion of
data collection that facilitates cross-national comparisons of social
behavior and trends. Since then, ISSP has grown into a collaborative group of
more than 40 member nations conducting surveys useful for social science
research worldwide, and is supported in part by the U.S. National Science
Foundation.
Today, the INPRO team’s work spans more than 25 countries across all
regions of the world.
Special Expertise
Democracy and Governance
Finance
Consumer Finance
Microfinance
Health
Land Management and Administration
Poverty Alleviation
Roads and Infrastructure
Think Tanks
Statistics and Sampling
Study Design and Survey Methodology
Data Collection and Management
Program and Policy Analysis and Research