Programs and units
Seven research units and an eighth for conferences. One governing rule: every unit publishes a dated periodic product — periodicity is what builds authority.
| Unit | What it does | Periodic product |
|---|---|---|
| Policy and political studies | Short, data-driven policy papers to a one-page standard: readable in under an hour, every figure verified. | Weekly brief (editorial input) |
| Elections and public opinion | The Syrian Barometer, voter registers and message design — under a published code of ethics. | Quarterly Barometer |
| Economy and reconstruction | A fixed cost-of-living basket, poverty lines, and investment priorities through the lens of data. | Monthly index |
| Society and values | A national values program with a ready toolkit, a ninety-day trial and triangulated measurement against a baseline. | Quarterly report |
| Media and impact measurement | Public trust in news sources (quarterly, within the Barometer) and monitoring of public discourse — never targeting individuals or specific outlets. | Semi-annual discourse study |
| Foresight and strategic security | Scenarios, decision games and analysis under uncertainty, in the RAND tradition. | Quarterly scenario paper |
| Publishing and reports | Producing the weekly brief (edited by the policy unit), the annual yearbook and the peer-reviewed journal. | Yearbook and journal |
Elections and public opinion unit — seven capabilities
- Voter registers and segment analysisDemographic modeling down to sub-district level.
- Periodic scientific pollsWith methodology and margin of error published with every wave.
- Message design and testingBefore launch, on controlled sub-samples.
- Field-staff trainingIn all fourteen governorates — a field network that cannot be bought.
- Voter-contact databases and turnout campaignsFor electoral bodies and public institutions, never for a competing side — we do not work for a candidate, a list or a party.
- Election-day operations roomReal-time monitoring of turnout and incidents.
- Live measurement and post-count reportAnalyzing and explaining the results with data.
The published code of ethics
Legitimate persuasion with data, never manipulation — and one number for everyone, never a number for one party and not another. We publicly commit to the AAPOR, ESOMAR and WAPOR codes, publish the full methodology with every poll, and treat every user of our analysis — citizen, researcher, or public, private, civil or international institution — on equal footing.
The Cambridge Analytica case is on record: it harvested the data of some 87 million users without consent for psychological profiling. The lesson is that abuse begins when data is harvested without consent and used for psychological manipulation — so we refrain from both and disclose our tools.
| What we do | Voter analysis and modeling · message testing · election-day operations rooms · voter-contact databases · segment analysis. |
|---|---|
| What we commit to towards every party | We give no party a number we do not publish for all · no one sees results before publication · commissioned studies name their client and publish their methodology on the same terms · our independence is proven by published criticism, not by relationships. |
| What we never do | Harvesting data without consent · psychological profiling of individuals · disinformation · targeting named individuals · working for a candidate, a list or a party. |
Conferences and forums
A conference is not academic decoration — it is the table where the data is laid out and its methodology debated in public, among researchers, statisticians and every institution that uses the analysis.
- AnnualNational annual conference
Brings together researchers at home and in the diaspora; the yearbook is discussed and the Barometer results are announced there.
- MonthlyMethodology and data forum
A review circle for researchers, statisticians and representatives of the institutions that use our work — public, private, civil and international alike — where instruments, samples and results are examined before publication, under the Chatham House Rule: nothing attributed to its speaker.
- FortnightlySpecialized roundtables
One topic and its experts: reconstruction, local administration, security, elections.
- QuarterlyField-training workshops
Preparing polling and statistical-analysis staff in the governorates.
- AnnualMIRSAD Prize for Syrian Research
For quantitative research with a published methodology — anchors the standard and attracts talent.
The monthly forum matters more than the annual conference: the former refines the methodology and corrects the instruments before a number leaves the building; the latter presents the results to the public after it does.
What will be published, and when — year one (from Q1 2027)
| Q1 | The first hundred days: founding, daily monitoring, the first weekly brief, the first methodology forum, the monthly index, the first national poll. |
|---|---|
| Q2 | The second quarterly Barometer, founding of the peer-reviewed journal, the Syrian talent database. |
| Q3 | Completion of the “Hundred-Day Guide”, ministry by ministry; the first annual yearbook. |
| Q4 | The first national conference, the first transparency report, the first publicly declared commissioned studies — under the same publication and independence terms for every public, private, civil or international client. |
The hundred-day tally: twelve briefs, a first national poll, a working monthly index and a standing elections unit — output you can see, not promises you hear.